Middle East Trump makes way for Turkey operation against Kurds in Syria

[LifeisTiresome]

Trump makes way for Turkey operation against Kurds in Syria

Kurdish-led forces accuse the US of abandoning them as Turkey prepares to enter northern Syria.

www.bbc.com

The US says it is stepping aside for an imminent Turkish operation against Kurdish-led forces within Syria that have until now been a key US ally.

Kurdish militias played a major role in defeating the Islamic State (IS) group, but Turkey regards them as terrorists.

The US - which has hundreds of troops in north-eastern Syria - has begun to withdraw them from a border area where Turkey seeks to set up a "safe zone".

Syria's main Kurdish-led group called the US move a "stab in the back".

"Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into northern Syria," the statement said.

"The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the Isis territorial 'Caliphate', will no longer be in the immediate area."

The White House also said that Turkey would take over all responsibility for IS fighters captured by Kurdish forces over the past two years.

This represents a significant shift in US policy - President Trump acting against the advice of many in the Pentagon and state department.

It risks a recasting of alliances in Syria. The Kurds may be forced to seek an accommodation with the Syrian government. The potential chaos could facilitate a resurgence of IS. Indeed, the US pullback of its forces from the border area may herald the full withdrawal of troops from Syria that Mr Trump has long wanted.

All this comes from this thread(Not my thread, I just blatantly copied it cause they already summarized the info) on Neogaf: Trump makes way for Turkey operation against Kurds in Syria

So what do you guys think?

 

[Bacle]

Well, this was pretty much inevitable. The simple fact is Turkey is in NATO, and the Kurds are not.

I'm not really happy to hear this, but the simple fact is there were no good options here. The situation is not one of Trump's making, but he, like many Americans, is tired of endless fighting in the ME for nebulous goals.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

Well, this was pretty much inevitable. The simple fact is Turkey is in NATO, and the Kurds are not. I'm not really happy to hear this, but the simple fact is there were no good options here. The situation is not one of Trump's making, but he, like many Americans, is tired of endless fighting in the ME for nebulous goals.

Well said. I think that's probably the most succinct summary of the situation I've read.

 

[Captain X]

Turkey has been taken over by a dictator, and we are abandoning our allies to them. Meanwhile we're also acting as Saudi Arabia's guard dog.

 

[Deleted member]

Vile, base treachery which will teach people around the world to treat the United States as a lying cur. I am incredibly ashamed.

 

[StormEagle]

What do people want us to do here, shoot at the Turks? They’re NATO allies, and strategically important. The Kurds are neither. Makes the political calculation rather simple to my mind.

 

[PsihoKekec]

It was obvious this was going to happen sooner or later, it's not the first time USA (or some other great power) threw a once useful ally under bus.

 

[Bacle]

Turkey has been taken over by a dictator, and we are abandoning our allies to them. Meanwhile we're also acting as Saudi Arabia's guard dog.

What do people want us to do here, shoot at the Turks? They’re NATO allies, and strategically important. The Kurds are neither. Makes the political calculation rather simple to my mind.

What would you have us do, get into a shooting war with Turkey over the Kurds?

As I said, I'm not happy about this, but there were not any good options here. Like, I'd dance a jig in the street if Erdogan and his ilk were taken out, and Turkey went back to be a secular bastion in the ME. But that is unlikely to happen, and Turkey controls a rather vital geographic region. The Kurds are good people, and I wish they had their own nation, but the geopolitical reality is they are not worth the blood and treasure a shooting war with Turkey would cost.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

It's worth remembering that however awful Erdogan is (and that is seriously awful), the fighting wouldn't be with him, it would be with the Turkish Army who would be fighting for Turkey. Turkish soldiers have a long-standing reputation for staunch courage under fire that would make taking them on a bloody business. As Bacle says, there are no good options here. There are only bad and less-bad. Also, Turkey is a NATO ally and we have a signed treaty with them. We have no treaty with the Kurds. Again as Bacle says, the Kurds are good people but history is full of good people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

[Marduk]

Turkey has been taken over by a dictator, and we are abandoning our allies to them. Meanwhile we're also acting as Saudi Arabia's guard dog.

Formally at very least Turkey is an ally too. Hell, they weren't exactly on good terms with the Kurds even before Erdogan and his merry band of islamists took over. The more important orientation of the alliance with Turkey is against Russia first and Iran second, Erdogan is wavering on that one too, so the turn is not unexpected, and hopefully the favor will be returned there.

Vile, base treachery which will teach people around the world to treat the United States as a lying cur. I am incredibly ashamed.

The alliance with Kurds was one of pure convenience. They were there, they were fighting a common enemy for own survival, they were not as politically toxic as other alternatives, why not cooperate. It lead to many military successes. Which in a way lead to Kurd's misinterpretation of their position - they thought that now they have lasting US military support, regardless of who is it required against, and that makes them a big deal able to make big demands. It was the peak of their negotiating position, and they have wasted it on making big demands that no one was going to agree to instead of capitalizing on it and getting a half-decent deal, probably with Assad. USA tried to help with the political side, but it could do only so much, and the window of opportunity is only getting further away, and US government has only so much patience for shielding Kurds from their own political mistakes - and they do have many of those.

 

[Bacle]

And in case anyone thinks Trump will just let the Kurds hang:


Turkey is on notice that if they cross certain lines, their economy will get devastated. This is far more effective at getting Turkey to hold back, and doesn't require American troops in Syria indefinitely.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

Once again, well said sir.

 

[Deleted member]

We did it to the Montagnards in South Vietnam and to the Hmongs as well, we've arguably done it to Taiwan by trapping them in a position of legal subordination to Red China, I'm simply not at all sanguine about our ability to demonstrate our national probity on this issue. I would have rather kicked Turkey out of NATO and threatened them with a demarche when it was blatantly clear years ago that they were funding ISIL. A Kurdish Republic would be a sure and certain friend of the United States that we could use as our bulwark against Islamism for the next century, in the long run saving the United States far more blood and treasure than the war to create it would cost. And it would show that we actually honour our national debts and are a nation prepared to go to war for honour. Ever since Polybius it has been clear that great Republics do this if they wish to remain great, the Romans were prepared to, and they would have never tolerated one of their allies defying, defaming, and undermining them like Erdogan has.

 

[Lanmandragon]

You know if we gave Constantinople back to the Greeks turkey wouldn't be strategically important...Deux Vult?

 

[Francis Urquhart]

There's an old saying. "Nations do not have permanent friends or enemies. They have permanent interests." Sadly, this is one of those cases. Now, there was a window of opportunity that existed a few years back when we could have done what you suggest and put us in the position to do what you wish now. The problem was that when that window of opportunity to dump Turkey was open, one Barack Hussein Obama was president and his overall worldview was that we should dump the alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia and replace them with an alliance with Iran and Turkey.

Yes, I know.

That deranged idiocy has left us with the position we're in now and, to repeat, there are no good options here. We either have to dump an official ally (Turkey) or an unofficial one (the Kurds). There is a reason why this sort of thing is called Satan's Choice.

 

[Bacle]

We did it to the Montagnards in South Vietnam and to the Hmongs as well, we've arguably done it to Taiwan by trapping them in a position of legal subordination to Red China, I'm simply not at all sanguine about our ability to demonstrate our national probity on this issue. I would have rather kicked Turkey out of NATO and threatened them with a demarche when it was blatantly clear years ago that they were funding ISIL. A Kurdish Republic would be a sure and certain friend of the United States that we could use as our bulwark against Islamism for the next century, in the long run saving the United States far more blood and treasure than the war to create it would cost. And it would show that we actually honour our national debts and are a nation prepared to go to war for honour. Ever since Polybius it has been clear that great Republics do this if they wish to remain great, the Romans were prepared to, and they would have never tolerated one of their allies defying, defaming, and undermining them like Erdogan has.

There weren't nukes or MAD in Roman times.

Turkey has already made overtures to Russia in the form of buying SAM systems, and is part of the One Belt, One Road plan for China. Going to war with them over the Kurds may not stay confined to the Syrian area if Turkey decides to seek someone else's nuclear umbrella.

These are ugly realities of the modern world, and no about of wishing for 'wars of honor' will change any of that. This mess was created before Trump was president, and he is trying for the least-bad option on the table.

 

[Deleted member]

There weren't nukes or MAD in Roman times.

Turkey has already made overtures to Russia in the form of buying SAM systems, and is part of the One Belt, One Road plan for China. Going to war with them over the Kurds may not stay confined to the Syrian area if Turkey decides to seek someone else's nuclear umbrella.

These are ugly realities of the modern world, and no about of wishing for 'wars of honor' will change any of that. This mess was created before Trump was president, and he is trying for the least-bad option on the table.

There's an old saying. "Nations do not have permanent friends or enemies. They have permanent interests." Sadly, this is one of those cases. Now, there was a window of opportunity that existed a few years back when we could have done what you suggest and put us in the position to do what you wish now. The problem was that when that window of opportunity to dump Turkey was open, one Barack Hussein Obama was president and his overall worldview was that we should dump the alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia and replace them with an alliance with Iran and Turkey.

Yes, I know.

That deranged idiocy has left us with the position we're in now and, to repeat, there are no good options here. We either have to dump an official ally (Turkey) or an unofficial one (the Kurds). There is a reason why this sort of thing is called Satan's Choice.

Our interest is to have leverage over the region. We are losing Turkey as that leverage. I would argue that we walked ourselves into this Satan's Choice because of Wilsonian Internationalism, Francis. We could have broken our alliance with the Turks for just cause and turned on them to maintain our probity with those who actually bled for us (the Kurds) years ago, and I think we still have the chance, though certainly it became harder when we let the Iranian dominated central government of Iraq crush the independence of the Iraqi Kurds, since a Kurdish state strong enough to serve our national interests in the Near East would need to be compromised of Syrian, Iraqi and Turkish Kurdistan.

Erdogan's SAMs won't last him the first hour if we want to take Turkey down. The problem is that Wilsonian internationalism has made us completely unable to fathom changing alliances, creating new states to serve our interests, and executing wars for the realisation of policy. I am a Realist just like you, Francis, it's just tempered by historicity and my belief that Polybius is fundamentally right that warfare always has a hint of irrationality in it and you simply have to acknowledge that and live with it. The Turks are destroying their own democracy and islamizing their own country... Americans will never be happy fighting for them. We were never really happy fighting for pro-Iranian crooks in Baghdad either. But the Kurds could have been a plucky little Belgium for our time. And the treasure (and bones of our greensuiters) we invested in the joke government of Iraq to keep that miserable farce of a country cobbled together could have been spent reordering the Near East as we please and creating a free Republic happy to be our ally.

 

[Bacle]

Our interest is to have leverage over the region. We are losing Turkey as that leverage. I would argue that we walked ourselves into this Satan's Choice because of Wilsonian Internationalism, Francis. We could have broken our alliance with the Turks for just cause and turned on them to maintain our probity with those who actually bled for us (the Kurds) years ago, and I think we still have the chance, though certainly it became harder when we let the Iranian dominated central government of Iraq crush the independence of the Iraqi Kurds, since a Kurdish state strong enough to serve our national interests in the Near East would need to be compromised of Syrian, Iraqi and Turkish Kurdistan.

Erdogan's SAMs won't last him the first hour if we want to take Turkey down. The problem is that Wilsonian internationalism has made us completely unable to fathom changing alliances, creating new states to serve our interests, and executing wars for the realisation of policy. I am a Realist just like you, Francis, it's just tempered by historicity and my belief that Polybius is fundamentally right that warfare always has a hint of irrationality in it and you simply have to acknowledge that and live with it. The Turks are destroying their own democracy and islamizing their own country... Americans will never be happy fighting for them. We were never really happy fighting for pro-Iranian crooks in Baghdad either. But the Kurds could have been a plucky little Belgium for our time. And the treasure (and bones of our greensuiters) we invested in the joke government of Iraq to keep that miserable farce of a country cobbled together could have been spent reordering the Near East as we please and creating a free Republic happy to be our ally.

One problem with any proposed Kurdish state, as far as I've seen it; no seaport access.

Thus they would be dependent on, and at the mercy of, all their neighbors for imported goods. Even with their oil, this would be an untenable situation in the long run. Even carving out a slice of Turkey to give them access to the Black Sea would still leave them at the mercy of the Turks for any sea access beyond the Bosphorus.

The geopolitical, and geographic, realities simply make what you want impossible to achieve without carving up the entire Middle East into new nations again. I wish things weren't this way, and that we could give the Kurds the nation/protection the deserve. But the simple fact is the amount of blood and treasure it would cost, and the time it would take, mean it is unlikely to ever happen, no matter who is in charge of the US.

 

[Deleted member]

Map of a Kurdistan.

Generally the central Cilician coast is show as having a Kurdish population. Of course, the Kurds don't have clean hands themselves, some of these areas shown used to be Armenian population before the Ottomans used Kurdish militias in WWI to ethnically cleanse them. I would require Kurdistan to hand some of those territories over to Armenia as part of the price of their independence being supported by the US (which might have the added benefit of luring Armenia out of Russian orbit).

 

[Lanmandragon]

One problem with any proposed Kurdish state, as far as I've seen it; no seaport access.

Thus they would be dependent on, and at the mercy of, all their neighbors for imported goods. Even with their oil, this would be an untenable situation in the long run. Even carving out a slice of Turkey to give them access to the Black Sea would still leave them at the mercy of the Turks for any sea access beyond the Bosphorus.

The geopolitical, and geographic, realities simply make what you want impossible to achieve without carving up the entire Middle East into new nations again. I wish things weren't this way, and that we could give the Kurds the nation/protection the deserve. But the simple fact is the amount of blood and treasure it would cost, and the time it would take, mean it is unlikely to ever happen, no matter who is in charge of the US.

Could we make the border next to Israel? They have seaports and are unlikely to screw them over.