Trump, Turkey, and the Kurds
One of the things that has happened to me during the last twenty years or so is that my natural skepticism of all news analysis has increased (and that’s saying something because I was somewhat skeptical even before that). I’ve come to the point where I distrust most news sources and most talking heads. But over time there are a few I’ve come to trust more than the others, because I’ve observed over time that they seem to at least try their best to be informed and to sort things out fairly.
In the current mess in Turkey with the Kurds, it’s even more apparent that most people are reacting in kneejerk fashion without much knowledge. I’ve seen way too many times before in that region of the world that predictions made by supposedly knowledgeable people have been way off, and yet they nevertheless retain a sort of hubris about themselves that seems wildly inappropriate.
In the case of Turkey and the Kurds, I admit to being largely ignorant about all but the most basic things. That makes it doubly hard to sort out what’s what. But I think that Victor Davis Hanson, whose analyses have impressed me in the past, not only seems to make sense in this recent article on the subject, but he’s also well-positioned to analyze it as a professor whose specialty is war, the military, and the history of war.
The entire article is well worth reading, but here’s an excerpt:
…[I]t is incumbent on the Trump administration in general and on Secretary Pompeo in particular to find ways to prevent mass Turkish attacks on the Kurds, while not inserting American ground troops into a cauldron of fire between Turks and Kurds. That effort will require a great deal of skill and deftness that are weirdly forgotten in the current bipartisan exclamations of “We sold out the Kurds!” — given the labyrinth of paradoxes that surround Turkey, Syria, Kurds, and the U.S. and the lack of information about the actual redeployment of American troops…
Many of the critics demanding that we restrain our NATO ally Turkey are precisely the same who have damned Trump for undermining the NATO alliance by loudly reprimanding allies for not keeping their promises of military contributions. Yet an American presence in between the Kurdish and Turkish trajectories may not necessarily serve as a successful deterrent to violence given our present limited deployment. If all Trump has done for now is to remove a few dozen Americans from a “trip wire” deployment between the two belligerents, he can hardly have “sold out” the Kurds.
Much much more at the link.
Andrew Bostom has a good piece at Frontpage.com entitled “Don’t romanticize the Kurds.” Aside from having participated in the Ottoman massacres of Christians (Armenian, Greek and Syriac) one hundred years ago, they have not always behaved well towards either Christians or Yazidis in recent years. Furthermore, they are spread over several countries and are divided into many factions, some openly Marxist. Even if, on the whole, they may be somewhat less dangerous to peace and stability than others in the region, the ME is nevertheless a part of the world in which far too many warring groups despise one another for our involvement to make much sense.
Bleeding Hearts aka Democrats seem to have no problem with the stupid strategy of using a few hundred Special Forces as a tripwire in Syria. We have also had an American tripwire in Korea since the 1950s. The US squanders military lives with its trip wires and its failure to ruthlessly occupy conquered countries like Iraq. We have to stop being Mr. Nice Guy!
Oddly, the Bleeding Hearts, which includes the WSJ Editorial Board, have blinders on about Erdogan.
Erdogan is the problem. Period. He is a vicious, nasty man. A liar. A Muslim, and his faith permits him to lie to unbelievers. In Syria, Turkey is allied with Iran and Russia; how much more filthy can Erdogan become?
Fortunately, Trump has used an economic weapon, tariffs, against Turkey, by increasing the tariffs on steel and stuff.
We need to pull our nukes out of the Incirlik airbase, and then destroy that base as we remove ourselves from Turkey. And remove Turkey from NATO! If not destroyed, Erdogan will turn that base over for Putin to use.
“In Syria, Turkey is allied with Iran and Russia . . . “
Not so, actually. The Turks have been long engaged in supplying and, if meagerly, yet protecting the anti-Assad Sunni forces still fighting in Idlib province. These latter are finally (after years) on the verge of succumbing to joint Russian-Syrian-Iranian assaults: another million or so refugees will soon be making their way across the Syrian-Turkish border to safety in Turkey, which already hosts some three million Syrians in refugee camps.
Things are far too complex in Syria to suffer facile reductions and still expect a coherent policy beneficial to the United States to emerge. Our Congress, in particular, doesn’t know its ass from a hole in the ground regarding these matters. Let’s don’t follow their lead. Nor, for all that ought our CinC.
The question I keep wanting to ask people who are adamant about the impropriety of Trump’s actions is : Ok, we do what you want. What happens next?
I think they assume that the Turks would not invade. Big bet that is.
If the Turks invade, what are our choices:
1. Invade Turkey, a NATO ally and where we have air bases?
2. Provide air and artillery support for the Kurds? From Turkey? What will the Turks think?
3. Ship more troops into Syria? I thought everyone was opposed to US intervention in the middle-est.
4. Do nothing? Then everyone knows we are a paper tiger.
It is a bad situation. Maybe Trump’s choice is the best option, even if one does not like it.
That VDH link is, as usual, really worth reading in total. (I always feel good when what I thought is pretty much what he thinks.)
Cicero is right about Erdogan. I actually saw him once, in a restaurant in Istanbul, while he was still mayor. As he left the restaurant, with flunkies and then his hijab-clad female relatives following him, our Turkish host sniffed about “religious fanatics” and how “they want us to be like our neighbor” (with a tilt of his head towards Iran).
Turkey is on thin ground economically, and Erdogan may be biting off more than he can chew in Syria. We’ll see.
So, sdferr, Turkey is and has been anti-Assad. To zero useful effect. A big deal is Turkey, a nearly useless member of NATO. Other than letting the US use Incirlik, which the US spent billions to build.
There is no conceivable policy re Syria that would prove beneficial to the USA other than what Trump has done.
The problem of Erdogan remains unaddressed.
I’m now thinking that Trump is doing better, in the Mid East, than those “experts” who have spent years studying it.
He’s taking out some US troops, and putting tariffs on Turkey steel & other stuff.
Naturally, the Rep (& Libertarian) “Free Market Fundamentalists” are against using tariffs – but also don’t quite agree on using war/ US soldiers killing and dying.
Many Kurds seem great; many seem like nasty works. During the post-91 “no fly” zones which were restricting Saddam’s ability to murder Kurds, the Iraqi Kurds failed to rally around any one faction and leader. And they still haven’t, it seems (based more on nobody talking about WHO is the leader of the Kurds, not any knowledge I have of the faction fighting there).
As a Lib, I was always against tariffs, even as an alternate punishment. Now, ex-libertarian me thinks tariffs are an underused diplomatic tool actually superior to US soldier use, and tariffs should almost always be used before sending in the Marines. We did have economic sanctions on Saddam — but also the world was more dependent on ME oil, then.
I think NATO should be talking about pushing Turkey to have a referendum on Kurdish independence in the majority Kurd S.E. third or so of Turkey.
And yes, the US nukes should be leaving Turkey.
Trump in practice seems to be doing better than Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush; Reagan?, or Carter. Yes, maybe better than Reagan, who mostly avoided any problem there, but didn’t fix things, either. Nor did Ford, nor Nixon… right in ’74 was the first big oil price hike.
By our non-democratic, non-human rights protecting but non-communist and thus very good ally, Saudi Arabia.
Read Spengler!
https://pjmedia.com/spengler/we-dont-have-good-options-with-turkey-and-iran-well-have-to-work-hard-to-get-them/
Turkey + Iran. Get it?
Related:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15036/erdogan-plan-annihilation-kurds
Turkey is one thing, Erdogan another. You know, by the way, that Edogan’s party lost big around Istanbul recently, yes? That Turks generally, whether in or opposed to Edogan’s party, are supporting the incursion into Syria?
Pres. Trump has a terrible hand dealt to him, and it appears he’s doing the best he knows.
The sanctions Trump is imposing, for instance, aren’t terribly rough (and I suspect he’s communicating quietly with Erdogan as much) and are, so far as I can see, meant to preempt worse from the dimwitted US Congress.
The impending Halkbank sanctions, on the other hand, are quite serious and in this sense show US priorities. It’s about Turkey’s end-running sanctions on Iran. Won’t do. That’s intolerable to the President’s strategic purpose, which is to collar Iran.
Obama, it must be said again and again, put the United States into this pretzel with his moronic Iran policies. He fucked us, and he’s still fucking us. He put Russia in Syria. He put tons of money in the Mullahs’ hands and they in turn put it to use murdering across the region, scattering ten million people in Syria to the winds (i.e. Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, and Europe).
“…pretzel…”
Always wondered what the “P” in JCPOA really stood for….
“I think NATO should be talking about pushing Turkey to have a referendum on Kurdish independence in the majority Kurd S.E. third or so of Turkey.”
So you’d be okay with NATO pushing for a referendum on the “recovery” of Aztlan, then?
This cannot be.
sdferr and I agree >99%.
As to NATO “pushing for a referendum”, that is nuts. “Pushing” a country to cede some 30% of its land area… voluntarily?
But maybe we could adopt that thinking to push California and Oregon out of the Union.
Here’s a recent (March 2019) map by al Jazeera that shows who holds what territory.
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2015/05/syria-country-divided-150529144229467.html
A review of the various factions is worthwhile.
Assad and his Alawite government is supported by Iran, Hezbollah, Russia, and some other small pro Assad Shiite militias.
Opposing Assad and company are the Free Syrian Army and various Islamist groups (Al Nusra Front, etc.) all supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UK, France, and the USA.
There are two odd men out. The first, ISIS, is now almost defunct, but they were opposed by both Assad’s government forces and the anti-Assad forces.
The other odd group out, the Syrian Democratic Forces (Kurds, YPK, PKK, PUK, & KDP), who fought mostly against ISIS and was supported by the USA, the UK, France, and twelve other nations as well as support from (gulp) Russia. The Kurds unfortunately, have always been an enemy of Turkey.
Here’s a link to a graphic that shows the situation as of 10/2019.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War
ISIS has been decimated and has no allies in Syria. The likelihood of them re-emerging is slim. However, our leaving completely opens up two bad outcomes.
1. It allows Turkey an opportunity to attack the Kurds, a group that we used as our ground pounders in the fight against ISIS. Now, some of the Kurds are pro Western Civilization, but many of them aren’t. While we used them, they used our support and cover to form a pretty strong regional Syrian Kurdish government enclave along the southeastern border of Turkey. Which makes the Turks nervous. Thus, Erdogan’s desire to establish a buffer along a 30 mile wide and 300 mile long strip on his border. Could that be done diplomatically? In any other part of the world, probably. In this part of the world, probably not. So, it’s war. What else is new in Syria? Can we stop it? Yes, we can and Trump is using economic pressure to do that. We or the Russians could stop the fighting with our militaries. Better to let the Russians get involved in that briar patch.
2. It opens Syria up to the unlimited movement of Iranian money, men, and armaments to Hezbollah and thus puts Israel in more danger. It also allows Iran to possibly access the oil fields in eastern Syria, which would be a boon for them. No good can come out of enhanced Iranian influence and ease of movement in Syria. It also, and this is what the neocons are most upset about, solidifies Russia’s influence in the ME. Russia, while it’s a second rate power, would love nothing more than to stir up trouble for the U.S. in the Muslim world. Having a secure toe hold in Syria along with their friendliness with Iran cannot bode well for the long haul.
Pulling our small group of Special Forces operators back from the Kurdish area while using economic power to stop Turkey’s offensive makes some sense. But, much as we would like to get completely out of the ME, it is a tar baby that is hard to get unstuck from.
Boy, the comments here really cover the complexity that Trump has to deal with. I saw on CNN Int tonight a copy of the letter Trump sent to Erdogan. It certainly wasn’t diplomatic speak, but it sure wasn’t a green light to the Turks.
The only thing I have to add is the situation with Germany and the EU. Legal Insurrection had a piece the other day about Turkish mosques in Germany that are hoping for a Turkish victory, and Turkey supplies the imams to the mosques. Sometime after his election, Erdogan came to Germany and told the Turks here not to assimilate. And he has threatened to release the Syrian refugees now in Turkey into the EU. So everything Trump does has to take into account how things will play out here. Erdogan has fantasies of creating a new Ottoman Empire, and he will murder and jail anyone in Turkey who threatens his dream. He is a total sleaze. We can only hope that sanctions will make him feel some pressure at home.
The German Turks have never been inclined to assimilate, not since they arrived in the 1950s. They are like our Latinos with their Cinco de Mayo stuff, their Aztlan, only worse. Not loyal to the place of their residence and freedoms. Erdogan does not need to encourage them. German Turks desire to be interred in Turkey! Puts them closer to their Prophet, apparently.
Cicero,
It depend on where they live. In smaller towns, they are more likely to assimilate, but in bigger city enclaves, they don’t.
A couple of hours ago I first saw Pres. Trump’s Oct. 9 letter to Pres. Erdogan, then shortly thereafter a 7ish min. clip from his joint presser with the Italian PM.
To all of which, yoicks. Just . . . yoicks.
It’s sui generis stuff, to my ears. Confusing at times, although that’s not to say wholly unintelligible. But damned if the man doesn’t wield a mean whipsaw.
expat: that is a fairly universal experience. When you know one another but are of different origins, you find common ground, as in die Kleine Burge. But in megalopoli one seeks one’s own kind, like Chinatowns, and the desire to mingle and adopt is not just lost but suppressed. See mercy killings in the Muslim Midwest. White midwesterners from Sweden, Norway and Finland just don’t do such stuff nor do they wash their feet 5x per day.
Age old story. The Kurds accuse the Turks of oppression based, in their case, on ethnicity. Not that the Turks need any excuse for oppression, it is part of their DNA.
On the other hand, the Turks label the Kurds as terrorists. The Kurds would surely counter that they are actually “Freedom Fighters”. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to sort out those competing claims.
I noted the term “trip wire” and shuddered. I would certainly hate to be a trip wire in a nasty part of the world. I remember when Reagan sent the Marines to Lebanon with no purpose other than to be a presence. They paid a horrible price; as did our people in Somalia at a later date. Many people are ignorant, or at least forgetful, of those episodes. I think it is completely irresponsible, bordering on criminal, to send U.S. troops in harm’s way to act as “trip wires” without the means for self-defense.
Now a controversial opinion. At least it gets some real arguments at home. In my considered opinion it is simply foolishness to refer to the Kurds as allies. Allies come to the aid of each other. Yes, the Kurds and the U.S. fought against a common enemy in Iraq and Syria because it served the Kurdish purpose. On the other hand, if there were Kurds deployed to fight along side the U.S. forces in Afghanistan for instance, I missed that fact. (There is a small Kurdish population. mostly Sunni, in Afghanistan, and they may or may not have been active militarily.)
I feel the same way about Israel. I admire Israel, and I support Israel, but I would never be so foolish as to call Israel an ally. One specious argument often heard is that they are the only Democracy in the region. Ok. So what? Against what foe have they actively allied themselves with the U.S.? When have they actively fought along side the U.S.?
The Israelis and the Kurds, like many others, may be termed friends; but, allies in a meaningful sense, no.
Words are often used carelessly; sometimes deliberately to serve a particular purpose. Such use can establish a false, even dangerous narrative. The U.S. government, and the populace, need to differentiate between friend and ally. It can be important.
“The U.S. government, and the populace, need to differentiate between friend and ally.” – Oldflyer
Well said.
One difference is that alliances are made by treaties, and don’t have to be between friends at all.
Victor Hansen: “The chief problem is that the Kurds are our friends but not our legal allies. In contrast, the Turks are not really our friends anymore but are legal, treaty-bound allies.”
And both friends and allies can change if the situation warrants it.
The “trip-wire” was an illusion: what action would the US have taken it it had been tripped? Does anyone think the opponents of Trump would have agreed to any action in response?
Obama and his various minions certainly tried to “fundamentally transform” as much of our society and country as he and they could, sometimes openly, sometimes in more subterranean ways.
From all indications, our military is the only major U.S. institution that the public still has any great measure of faith in.
One of Obama’s transformational efforts, that has not gotten as much attention as it should have—probably largely due to military officer’s usual reluctance to air their linen in public—was Obama’s fairly stealthy campaign to purge the actual warriors from our military, as conservative, crusty, war-fighting officers, loyal to our traditions were—by the use of one ruse or the other—forced into retirement, drummed out of our military, Obama replacing them with his lefty, far less martial soulmates and partisans.
Seems like retired Admiral McRaven might be one of those soulmates.
See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/10/unhinged-retired-admiral-and-clinton-loyalist-calls-for-coup-of-president-trump-remove-trump-from-office-the-sooner-the-better/
Take a look at the history of Rome, the Roman state’s relationship with its military, and the pivotal role the military played in that history and—toward the last—not in a good way.