I will come to this later but, first, it might make sense to create some sense, if that is possible, of Trump’s decision. A narrative seems to be emerging, even though its different strands are, at times, contradictory and being woven to fit a fast-changing situation.
The broad narrative goes like this. It is said that Turkey was all set to invade northeastern Syria to expel the Syrian Kurd forces from a 30-km zone within Syrian territory to create a buffer, where Turkey will shift and settle a large number of Syrian refugees, who had fled from Assad regime’s persecution.
This area (and its extension) is also likely to become staging posts for all sorts of rebel militias supported/sponsored and financed by Turkey, including elements of the IS. They call themselves the Syrian National Army (SNA), and include, among them, some IS militants.
Some of the videos portraying their brutality, as they advanced into northeastern Syria, indicate what might be in store for the Kurds, not ruling out ethnic cleansing.
Trump’s response has been indifference. He argued (if his tweets and random observations could be called a narrative) that the conflict between the Turks and Kurds had gone back 300 years and it was none of the US’s business to put its military in the harm’s way.
As for the Kurds’ loyalty to the US against the IS, they were, Trump asserted, simply fighting for their territorial interests.
In any case, according to Trump, the Kurds were no angels themselves.
And the US wouldn’t want to start a war for them with Turkey, a NATO ally. Therefore, it made sense to have American troops return home.
But they weren’t returning home. It was reported that they would be sent to Iraq if they were needed against a resurgent IS.
Iraq, of course, wasn’t happy to know from the media that the US troops, vacating northeastern Syria, would be headed their way.
Now we learn that Trump’s self-described brilliant strategy of withdrawing from northern Syria and to let Turkey and Kurds fight it out might not be all that brilliant.
According to Mark Esper, the US defence secretary, “Turkey put us all in a very terrible situation. I think the incursion was unwarranted. I think President Erdogan was fixated on making this incursion for one reason or another and there was not a possibility that we were going to start a war with a NATO ally.”
So, the US apparently had no choice in the matter.
Trump indeed, it was argued, saved many lives by letting Turkey do what it wanted.
Perhaps, Ankara should have done it humanely, and the US forewarned them that they would face US sanctions.
But it hasn’t been too bad, after all, and the US wouldn’t go ahead with sanctions.
In any case, Russia has now stepped in after a Turkey-Russia deal to secure the border, which broadly stipulates the Russian military police and Syrian forces would be deployed in a zone 30 kilometres deep, along much of the northeastern border, to ensure that Kurdish fighters leave the area.
After this (the evacuation of the Kurdish fighters), Russia and Turkey are to begin joint patrols on the Turkish Syrian border.
The troops served both as a buffer between Turkey’s determination to push Syrian Kurds as far away from Turkey-Syrian border as was feasible, as well as a strong deterrent to the IS revival
And if the Kurdish fighters don’t leave the designated zone, President Erdogan has warned, “We will take matters into our own hands and do the cleaning ourselves if this area is not cleansed of terrorists (Kurds) —- We will chase them wherever they flee…”
The US seems to be having second thoughts on the aspects of their decision to withdraw. Now, some US troops would return from northern Iraq to “prevent the oil fields [in the region] from falling back into the hands of ISIS or other destabilizing actors,” one US defence official was reported to have said.
Another reason cited is to prevent any resurgence of the IS. It is also reported, though without attribution, that returning (to Syria) US troops might co-ordinate with the Kurdish-led forces against the return of the IS.
Apparently, Russia was pleased that it would be able to play a determining role in northeast Syria, on top of its already decisive role in resurrecting Assad regime when it was almost on its last legs; even more so when Trump had no problem with that.
Not surprisingly, therefore, Moscow reacted with fury when it was learnt that the US troops might return to the border region.
As Russia’s defence ministry spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov said, “What Washington is doing now, the seizure and control of oil fields in eastern Syria under its armed forces, is simply international state banditry.”
In other words, nothing is yet settled in northeast Syria. It has only become more complicated and highly dangerous.
However, it seems clear that the Kurds would be the biggest losers in the given chaos; another human disaster awaiting them. History has never been kind to them.
The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia