FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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A bleak choice faces abandoned Kurds

A bleak choice faces abandoned Kurds

President Trump’s knee-jerk decision to withdraw US troops from Syria leaves his allies in a vicious predicament

US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from Syria was made in haste, without consulting his national security team. Among those apparently blindsided was his anti-ISIS envoy Brett McGurk, who joined Defence Secretary James Mattis in resigning to protest the decision.
Trump made the snap decision during a phone call with his Turkish counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who appears to have exploited an American leader known for his shallow thinking and knee-jerk reactions.
Trump explained that the mission of US troops had been completed with the eradication of the Islamic State terror group – a claim supported by Erdogan.
The resulting announcement stunned the world and triggered the resignation of Mattis, the last senior member of the administration with a record of standing up to Trump.
Reports indicate that Mattis, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton had scrambled to find a compromise to prevent the pullout. 
But they underestimated Trump’s ego: there will be no delayed withdrawal of troops.
In predictable fashion, Trump 
belittled the resigning McGurk, saying he hardly knew the man. And yet the president had the audacity to declare victory in the war against ISIS without consulting America’s point man for a global coalition force that has been fighting the terrorist network for the past three years.
Why did the pullout come as a shock to many? In McGurk’s words, “It left our coalition partners confused and our fighting partners bewildered.”
On the frontline in the fight against ISIS are the Kurds, an ethnic group spanning Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran but without a country of their own.
Backing up the Kurd forces are some 2,000 American soldiers. With those US troops out of the way, regional powerhouse Turkey will do whatever is necessary to prevent the Kurds from carving out territory for their own sovereign nation, even beyond Turkish borders. Erdogan will not hesitate in crushing the Kurds, a longstanding thorn in his side.
One might think Washington had a moral obligation to help prevent its allies from being slaughtered by Turkey. Sadly, this is not the case.
“It’s all yours. We are done,” Trump reportedly told Erdogan over the phone.
With those six words, the Kurds’ long-held dream of establishing an autonomous homeland was shattered. One can’t really say Trump’s decision was ill-advised. After all, none of his key advisers were consulted.
Instead Kurdish ambitions were crushed because of Trump’s ignorance of world affairs and his failure to comprehend the complexity of the global war on terrorism.
The Kurds now face a stark choice: retreat into the mountains and wage a guerrilla war against Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian forces, or hold their ground and face an onslaught from the dictator’s resurgent Damascus regime.
Neither choice looks good. Already, Turkey is mobilising troops along the Syrian border to prevent any power vacuum in the region.
Given their current predicament, the Kurds’ hopes for a nation-state will have to be placed on the back burner. What’s important right now is survival. Don’t be surprised if the Kurds cut a deal with the Syrian regime to minimise their losses.
When the choice is between surrendering to a country that has never accepted your existence, and allying with a tyrannical regime that might be willing to give you precious space for survival, the decision shouldn’t be too difficult.

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