It’s probably best for me to start by saying that I was always against U.S. military involvement in the Syrian civil war – this was the case during the Obama administration and it remains the case now. But because our troops have been there in numbers exceeding 1,000 for years now, and that we have worked them into Syria’s complex web of security guarantees, alliances, and bitter enmities, it seems only right that we should consider the consequences of whatever decisions we make, whether it means pulling troops out or putting more in. This is a situation in which every power is in it for its own gain, and that includes the United States. That’s why the goddam war is still going on … and thanks to Trump this week, it’s likely to move into a new and more deadly phase.
The Syrian Kurds, who made the mistake of fighting for us as part of the conflict in their country, are now in the crosshairs of a massive military operation by Turkey – an incursion into northern Syria with the aim of establishing a buffer zone between the Turkish frontier and the Kurdish population, which Erdogan considers an enemy. Trump has chosen to throw the Kurds under the bus, so he has proven that he is, after all, an American foreign policy traditionalist. Our foreign policy establishment has been arranging bus hats for that dispossessed people since the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. (See Jon Schwarz’s article in the Intercept for a thumbnail history of our various betrayals of the Kurdish people.) It’s a little mystifying as to why mainstream foreign affairs talking heads are so unhappy with Trump right now. He just pulled a Kissinger.
The only fortunate thing for the Kurds of Syria is that a broad swath of American articulate opinion supports them. The trouble is, Trump doesn’t, and apparently Erdogan has something the fat boy wants, hence the policy about-face. Or maybe it’s because, as Trump incoherently said, they didn’t help us during World War II. In any case, Americans tend to love Kurds when they are useful, like they’ve been in Syria, like they were in Iraq in 1991 and after. They also hate and undermine them when they stand in opposition to friendly countries, like the Turkish Kurds in the 1990s. But that’s half a loaf, at least – other stateless peoples, like the Palestinians, don’t even get that.
Like so many others we have on our heads, this bloodbath could have been avoided.
luv u,
jp
