Trump’s stunning betrayal of the Kurds

IAN BLACK

Scorn and disbelief were entirely justified when Donald Trump defended his abandonment of the Kurds to a Turkish onslaught by saying that they “had not helped us” in Normandy – the site of the decisive battle to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation in the second world war.

Not for the first time, the US president was expressing opposition to what he contemptuously termed “tribal wars” in the Middle East. But this time he went further - with potentially devastating consequences - by essentially giving a green light to Recep Tayib Erdogan’s plan to create a “safe zone” in north-eastern Syria.

The man in the Oval Office immediately attracted furious criticism. European allies expressed their dismay – Britain nervously managed only “disappointment” - but there was anger on the domestic front too, including from senior members of the Republican Party like Senator Lindsey Graham.

Niki Haley, the former US ambassador to the UN, spoke for many when she rebuked Trump for having betrayed the Kurdish forces who had spearheaded the defeat of Isis. The danger is that thousands of Isis prisoners may escape – and live to fight again in the name of their “Caliphate.”

Ignorance of key moments in 20th century history is one thing. But the president’s reputation for impulsiveness and inconsistency was not improved by what happened next. Having announced the withdrawal of the small number of US forces – and given implicit approval to the long-anticipated operation by a fellow member of Nato - he then unconvincingly threatened Erdogan with the “obliteration” of Turkey’s economy if his forces went too far.

The result was that the US, which has struggled to deal with the war in Syria since it began in 2011, found its international credibility badly damaged yet again. Barack Obama failed to observe his own “red line” of the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad. Trump tried and failed to withdraw US troops in December 2018 – but the resignation of defence secretary James Mattis showed determined opposition in the Pentagon. Critics now accuse the president of having let down his own military as well as the Kurds.

Traditional US allies are understandably alarmed. Israel is already reeling from the White House’s changing attitude towards Iran. Having persuaded Trump to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal Binyamin Netanyahu is shaken by the fading of the US policy of “maximum pressure” on Tehran and the failure to respond militarily to Iran’s recent provocations in the Gulf, whether the harassment of oil tankers or last month’s drone and missile attack on the Saudi Aramco oil installation at Abqaiq.

For their part the Saudis also appear to be reaching out to Iran to try to de-escalate tensions, though as the Kurdish crisis deepened Trump also announced the despatch of 3,000 US troops to reinforce the kingdom’s defences. He also boasted that Riyadh would now be paying for “everything we are doing to help them” as well as buying billions of dollars’ worth of US military hardware. That typically transactional approach brought accusations of US personnel acting as “mercenaries.”

Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, observed in the wake of Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds that it was now “futile” to seek America’s permission or to rely on it for security.”

It is widely believed that this latest erratic US move will play directly into the hands of Iran and Russia, both firm supporters of Assad. The Kurds have already appealed for help from Damascus, now consolidating its control over the majority of the country. That does not augur well for the fate of Idlib, in the north-west, the last remaining stronghold of opposition forces.

Erdogan’s own motives are mixed. Turkey certainly has legitimate security concerns on its southern border, but Ankara’s plan to establish a “safe zone” is motivated too by the wish to reduce the number of Syrian refugees – 3.6 million – it has been hosting against a background of rising domestic discontent. If those Syrians, largely Arabs, do return under Turkish protection it will threaten the Kurdish presence in the country’s north-east and could constitute ethnic cleansing.

American pundits predict that as the presidential election of November 2020 draws near, the man who has been dubbed the “Narcissist-in-Chief” will increasingly put his own selfish interests above the global reputation of the US. That is likely to mean courting those voters who want to reduce the scope of US involvement in the Middle East. Isolationism will win him support. Ignorance is not the monopoly of the Donald!

Whatever the extent and outcome of the Turkish offensive, the scale of the damage done by Trump is no less than stunning. Mixed messages, recklessness, greed and sheer confusion are no way to conduct the foreign and security policy of what – like it or not - is still the most powerful country on earth.