Daily Times

As if the Middle East weren’t already an explosive region, President Trump has facilitated another flare-up. By this, I mean the (implied) go-ahead he has given to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to go after Syria’s Kurds, who played a determining role in the defeat of Islamic State and, in the process, lost 11,000 of their fighters.

By most accounts, without Kurdish fighters (YPG) on the ground, the US, even with its superior military power, would not have prevailed in Syria’s northeast where the IS was strongly entrenched.

The Kurds in Syria had managed to create a stronghold in the country’s northeast, first in the wake of the Syrian civil war, where the Assad regime was over-stretched and then after a four-year bloody war with the IS, which sought to entrench there.

The Kurds were the US’s most reliable ally and helped defeat a dogged enemy, regarded not only as a regional threat but a global one as well by seeking to create an Islamic caliphate (their version) as the political and military centre for Muslims willing to rally under its banner.

How has Trump started this new adventure? First thing to note is that Turkey was given a virtual signal for its military offensive against Kurds in northern Syria at a time when Trump was in the midst of an impeachment process for his phone conversation with the Ukrainian president, seeking an investigation into the conduct of former vice-president Joe Biden’s son (and by implication of the father too) for alleged corruption when he was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

The seeming quid pro quo would be that if Ukraine dug up dirt on Biden and his family, the US would release the promised $400 million worth of military aid for that country.

It would seem that the Syrian adventure, among other things, was meant as an important distraction to the impeachment process, even if it has led to intense criticism of Trump even among some of his loyal Republican politicians.

How is Trump facing this criticism? First and foremost, he is telling his conservative base (according to a recent poll, he still has the support of nearly 90 per cent of Republican voters) that by withdrawing US military forces from Syria, he is simply fulfilling his election pledge to withdraw from all these endless wars.

But when faced with strong criticism from within his party, he reportedly said that, ” … if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom consider to be off-limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey …”

In more restrained language, he called Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria a “bad idea.” Who encouraged the implementation of this “bad idea”-none other than Trump? No wonder, Turkey has gone ahead, soon after the withdrawal of US military presence.

Soon after Turkish forces started the military offensive, Trump reportedly said that that he had broadly three options. One is to send US troops back that, of course, he is not serious about. That would mean rolling back Turkish advances and starting a new war with that country.

The second option Trump talked about was mediation. The question is: mediation to what end? The only mediation Turkey might consider would be to control and occupy northern Syria and settle three million or more Syrian refugees sheltering in Turkey.

Third, is to slap economic sanctions on Turkey, which is the preferred option.

Trump has rubbished the idea that the US has a moral obligation to a loyal ally like the Kurds

But sanctions haven’t always worked, as seen in Iran and North Korea. In any case, they are a long-term solution, if they work at all.

President Erdogan has clearly stated he intends to go ahead with his mission. Indeed, he has threatened European countries, which have dubbed his military advances into northern Syria as “invasion”, that if they persisted in calling it an invasion, he would push 3.6 million Syrian refugees on to Europe.

Trump has also rubbished the idea that the US has a moral obligation to a loyal ally like the Kurds. In his own rambling way, he reportedly said that the Kurds had not helped us in WW11, like in Normandy.

In any case, the Kurds were fighting for their own territory, and the US had no moral or any other kind of obligation to them.

Indeed, he simply shrugged the Turkish military offensive altogether when he said, “Let them have their borders, but I don’t think our soldiers should be there for the next 50 years guarding a border between Turkey and Syria when we can’t guard our own borders at home”, a reference for his conservative base designed to rekindle the Mexican border issue, which featured so prominently in last elections and undoubtedly will be exploited again.

In the meantime, a large-scale humanitarian disaster is unfolding with civilian Kurds fleeing in whatever direction.

They are, however, a hardy bunch as proven by the defeat of IS in their region and are likely to regroup to defend their territory.

In the meantime, the Kurdish disarray is likely to reignite IS, as there are already reports that the IS militants have broken out of prisoners’ camps under Kurdish guards.

The reported agreement between the Assad regime and the Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria is another perplexing development.

In other words, what is unfolding in northern Syria with the Turkish military offensive is just the beginning of what could easily develop into something much bigger and completely get out of control.

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia