The national media blasted President Trumpâs withdrawal of 50 US military advisors from the Syrian border with Turkey as a âsellout,â a âbetrayalâ ađnd a âhuge strategic blunder.â
Letâs be clear: None of them truly care about the Kurâds. Otherwise, they would have been sending correspondents and camera crews to Rojava, as the Kurds call northern Syria, on a regular basis.
Letâs also be clear abāˇ´out the goals ęĻĢof Turkish president Tayyip Recep Erdogan. While he attempted to stylize his military invasion of Rojava as a counterterrorism operation, few international observers bought into it. Why? Because there have been no terror attacks against Turkey from Syrian territory since the Syrian Kurds established their self-governing entity in 2012. None.
Erdogan is not even remotely interested in fighting ISIS, or in taking responsibility for the estimated 12,000 đˇISIS fighters currently in Kurdish custody at the al-Hol refugee camp. What actually happens to those ISIS prisoners, and the fate of Christian and Yazidi minorities, will be key measures of theđ agreement hammered out by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with Erdogan on Thursday.
The humanitarian disaster that unfolded this past week helped to paint Erdogan as notorious a mass murderer as Saddam Hussein. And it was to Erdoganâs legacy that the president appealed in his private, and now pubđŗlic, letter to the Turkishđ¯ president as the crisis unfolded.
Erdoganâs real goal with this invasion was to smash Kurdish self-īˇŊgovernment, and those 50 US advisors were the last thing in his way.
But letâs be clear about US goals, too. Our advisors were not in northern Syria to defend a Kurdish government but to fight ISIS. The fight to smash the ISIS ęĻ caliphate ęĻis over, and we won.
No US administration has ever bought into Kurdish national aspirations. Even the pro-Kurdish ex-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was a long-time investor in Kurdish oil, warned Iraqi Kurds to đšcancel a planned referendum on independence in September 2017.
When Kurdish Regional Government president Masoud Barzani defied those warnings, Tillerson said the results âlacked legitimacyâ and warned there would be serious consequences. And the United States did nothing when Baghdad sent troops to the Iraqi city of Kirkuk shortly after the vote, then arrested the Kurdish governor-general and reclaimed contđĻrol of the northern oil fields. That was a huge strategic setback for the Iraqi Kurds.
I have met with Kurdish political and military leaders in the region, including the PYD, the political arm of the Kurdish YPG militia. And while they were thrilled to have US backing in the fight against ISIS, none of them had any illusions about the US coming to their aiđd should Turkey attack.
Did the presidentâs critics really believe he should have considered those 50 US soldiers as a âtripđwireâ that would trigger a massive US military invasion of Syria to fight against Turkey â our đ NATO ally?
The president has taken concrete, immediate steps to shame and to punish Erdogan for his outrageous violation of the North Atlantic charter, which calls on member states to âsettle any international disputes in which they may be involved by peaceful means … and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.â
The president on Monday unleashed new sanctions against Turkish officials đĻŠand government entities, imposed stiff tariffs on Turkish steel exports to the United States and called off talks on a $100 billion trade deal.
On Tuesday, the Departmenđt of Justice unveiled a criminal complaint againđ¯st Turkeyâs state-owned Halkbank for allowing Iran to buy billions worth of gold using frozen oil money, violating economic sanctions. The complaint makes clear that senior government officials â possibly including Erdogan himself â took enormous bribes in exchange for allowing the scheme to continue.
Those sanctions â and the threat of more sanctions â paid off and forceđd Erdogan tâo back down.
The Kurds are paying a heavy price in this battle â not because of a US betrayal â but because they remain stateless and thus powerless. By targeting Erdogan financáŠáŠáŠáŠáŠáŠâ¤â¤â¤â¤áŠâ¤â¤â¤â¤áŠâ¤â¤â¤â¤áŠđąáŠáŠáŠially, legally and undermining his legitimacy, President Trump has done more to help the Kurds than his critics with their crocodile tears. And for now, he is winning.
Kenneth R. Timmerman is the best-selling author of â.â He lectured on Iran at the Pentagonâs Joint Counter-Intelligence Training Academy from 2010-2016.