Even worse, he ceded the bargaining over the region to Turkey and Russia with Erdogan and Putin meeting in Sochi. There was no US presence at this historic meeting despite having spent five years providing logistic and military support to the Kurds in our mutual battle with ISIS. Trump had conceded any role the US had to Turkey when he sent Pence and Pompeo to negotiate a five-day cease fire, which turned out to be the time US forces needed to pull out of Syria, leaving the embattled region to be split among Turkish and Russian forces. American fighter planes bombed US bases, hoping to destroy as much of the munitions they had left behind.
It's a retreat like we haven't seen since Vietnam. As clear a definition of defeat as you are ever going to find and one that will haunt the US military for years to come. It wasn't like we had a significant force in Northern Syria. Trump claims 28 soldiers. It was more like 100. They were there to effectively discourage Turkey from invading Northern Syria lest they want to risk confrontation with the US.
Who knows what transpired between Trump and Erdogan over the phone? Maybe Erdogan threatened to go into the region anyway and so Trump chose not to risk these American lives. Whatever decision was reached was done so between them with no consultation with the US military until after the fact. Another first.
This decision has far reaching consequences. There are many places around the world where the US has small military contingents that serve no other purpose than to act as a deterrent. One such contingent is in the Baltic states, where the US has small forces in each of the three countries, ostensibly to discourage any Russian military aggression against Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. This has been the case ever since these three countries joined NATO in 2004.
What's to stop Trump from pulling American forces out of the Baltics if Putin gives him a call? Why should Trump feel any more need to protect the Baltic states than he did the Kurds. He can make the same claim the Baltic states didn't fight with the US at Normandy, as they had been overrun by German forces in 1941.
Trump's decision to pull the US troops out of Northern Syria sends shock waves around the world. The US can no longer be trusted either as a partner or as a protector. Worse, Trump is conceding parts of the world to aggressive states like Turkey and Russia, both of which have openly stated their imperial ambitions. Erdogan wants to recreate the Ottoman Empire, Putin a Tsarist Russian one. They cleave parts of adjoining countries to further their already large territories, both in the name of creating "buffer zones" against what they view as foreign aggression.
China also wants to enlarge its territorial claims, but so far the US hasn't come into direct confrontation with the Communist government. Trump simply chooses to remain quiet while China exercises its authority over Hong Kong. But, what will happen when China presses its case for Taiwan, a country that has long been considered our ally in the Asian Pacific?
What has been clear throughout Trump's administration is that he abhors actual confrontation. He loves to shout in his tweets, threaten all kinds of actions, but when push comes to shove he retreats. This is true both on the personal level and on the international level. He loves demeaning foreign leaders on Twitter but when he actually meets them, he is quiet as a mouse. He literally cowers before foreign autocrats and dictators, and has never to this date had anything bad to say about Putin despite the US Congress issuing sanctions on Russia, which he was forced to sign. He still refuses to accept that Russia had any involvement in the 2016 election hacking, preferring to revel in Ukrainian conspiracy theories instead.
All this should turn his devoted base against him. After all, they demanded a President who would stand tall in the face of opposition, believing that Obama had diminished America's standing in the world. Well, no president has done more to diminish America's standing than has Trump. Whether it was recognizing totalitarian regimes like North Korea or the stateless Taliban, he has given succor to our enemies and let down our allies time and again.
In an effort to appease Kim Jong-un, he cancelled military maneuvers in South Korea without any consultation with the US military or to our long-standing ally. In an effort to negotiate a withdrawal from Afghanistan, he openly courted the Taliban for the better of a year, hoping to gain assurances that they wouldn't invade Kabul once the American forces pulled out. I suppose he hoped to gain some concessions from our enemies, but having gained none, was forced to eat these ill-advised decisions.
You might remember this is a guy who for the first half of his administration constantly berated fellow NATO countries for not carrying their weight when it came to military spending. He mistook the 2 per cent target figure of GDP as some kind of membership dues, rather than understanding this was a voluntary agreement made during the Bush and Obama administrations. He repeatedly threatened to retract US commitments if other NATO countries didn't ante up. He's been demonstrably quiet in the second half of his administration.
Trump was never looking to bolster NATO, but rather for a way to diminish our role in the alliance. As it is now, he is asking NATO countries to make up for the reduced American presence in Syria, which is kind of odd given that Turkey is also a NATO country, and by doing so he would pit NATO countries against each other. If only Trump had been as demanding of Erdogan as he was other NATO country leaders before ceding Northern Syria to Turkey.
No president has ever been so accommodating to autocratic leaders. The US position in the past was to push back, reach some kind of compromise to ease hostilities, with the hope of mitigating civilian casualties. Not Trump. He doesn't seem to care. Whether it is Yemen where Saudi Arabia has waged an unmerciful war of attrition for the past three years, or Ukraine where Trump threatened to withhold military assistance lest its leaders aid him in his personal assault on Joe Biden, or Hong Kong where Trump has turned a deaf ear to the protests against Chinese autocratic rule, as he tries to negotiate a long-deferred trade deal with Beijing. Each and every time, Trump has gone out of his way to avoid confrontation with autocratic leaders, namely Mohammad bin Salman, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, all of whom he seems to be afraid of. Trump, being Trump, would never admit to this cowardice but it is there for all to see.
Syria represents the debacle of his foreign policy, if you can call it that. He simply had to hold his ground, keep a relatively small American force in place to act as a deterrent against Turkish aggression. It was a relatively simple task and one the military was willing to accept. Not only did he cede our position in Syria to the Turks, but has taken no role in the negotiations concerning the Kurdish homelands in the northern half of this country. This is as complete a sell out as there can be, which is why so many Republicans are upset. It greatly diminishes our role as international arbitrator in international disputes, something we have long prided ourselves on, even if we haven't been particularly good at it.
Pride goeth before the fall. I would have to think there is not much pride left in the White House in seeing their armored trucks pelted by potatoes.
Comments
Post a Comment