Trump Bets Syria Chaos Is Outweighed by Campaign Vow on Troops
Trump clearly didn’t anticipate the level of anger that followed the sudden move to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria.
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump’s chaotic policy toward Syria stoked outrage among lawmakers -- including some of his Republican supporters -- who say he’s abandoning Kurdish allies to slaughter, allowing Islamic State to regroup and opening a vacuum to be filled by Russian and Syrian forces.
Once all the tumult dies down, Trump is betting his core voters ultimately won’t care.
While the U.S. president ran in 2016 on a vow to bring American troops home from “endless wars,” carrying out that promise has proved difficult: Trump has actually sent more forces to Afghanistan and the Middle East since 2017. Yet barely one year from election day and with an impeachment inquiry under way in the House, the president has signaled his impatience and that he wants to get out, no matter how messy the repercussions.
“He believes the U.S. shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” said Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish research program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “He’s going to run his re-election campaign on that foreign policy mantra.”
Trump isn’t trying to check off just one box from his list of campaign promises. In recent weeks he’s also sought to lock down a partial trade agreement with China after long saying he’d only accept a complete deal, and he’s ramped up efforts to build a wall along the southern border: both core elements of his original “America First” campaign.
The president even linked two of the disparate issues on Monday when, after posting on Twitter about the his Syria pullout, he wrote “I would much rather focus on our Southern Border which abuts and is part of the United States of America. And by the way, numbers are way down and the WALL is being built!”
Even so, Trump clearly didn’t anticipate the level of anger that followed the sudden move to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria, a decision he took on a phone chat with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Little more than a week later, the president on Monday imposed limited new sanctions on three top Turkish officials and urged a cease-fire, an outcome that would let Erdogan lock in place his new territorial gains in Syria.
‘Looks Reckless’
While some Trump supporters are committed to the president no matter what, his making and remaking of foreign policy on the fly may worry many independent and moderate voters as he faces re-election.
“It looks reckless, it looks thoughtless, it looks like he’s comfortable gambling with other people’s lives -- and that will make candidates that are not reckless and thoughtless look more more marketable than they otherwise might,” said Kori Schake, deputy director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies who was an official with the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.
But in withdrawing, Trump is getting most U.S. troops out of the region’s most complex conflict and claiming a promise kept.
As criticism mounted and scenes of Kurds being executed proliferated on social media, Trump administration officials found themselves arguing that the U.S. never condoned a Turkish military operation in Syria even though the White House announced on Oct. 6 that “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria” and U.S. forces “will no longer be in the immediate area.”
Then in a confusing switchback, Trump said he was willing “to swiftly destroy Turkey’s economy if Turkish leaders continue down this dangerous and destructive path.” On Monday, he increased steel tariffs on the NATO ally and had Vice President Mike Pence announce that sanctions will worsen if there isn’t a cease-fire. Pence also said he’ll lead a high-level delegation to Turkey.
The policy turmoil has confounded almost everyone who follows the politics of the region.
“It’s the triumph of domestic politics over the national interest, it’s the absence of process to implement things in a rational manner and it’s a total disregard to how we’re perceived by our adversaries and our allies,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He called it “the single decision that has triggered the most immediate and negative consequences.”
The head of the Kurdish forces, General Mazloum Abdi, wrote in “Foreign Policy” this week that Trump’s move left his troops “standing with our chests bare to face the Turkish knives.”
Justifying the Kurds’ new alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Russian forces that back him, Mazloum said “if we have to choose between compromises and the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life for our people.”
Lawmakers’ Response
If the scenes from northern Syria following Trump’s decision were chaotic, the pushback on Trump from lawmakers was harsh.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasn’t alone in accusing Trump of unleashing “an escalation of chaos and insecurity” in Syria. Republican Representative John Shimkus of Illinois, who graduated from West Point and has consistently backed the president, called the moves “despicable” and said the U.S. has “stabbed our allies in the back.”
“The United States has taken the fight to Syria and Afghanistan because that is where our enemies are,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “That’s why we’re there. Fighting terrorists, exercising leadership in troubled regions and advancing U.S. interests around the world does not make us an evil empire or the world’s policeman.”
But Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who was sharply critical of the Syria withdrawal initially, seemed mollified by Trump’s actions on Monday. Urging lawmakers to “support President Trump’s efforts to impose crippling sanctions against Turkey,” the Republican from South Carolina said he wanted to give the Trump’s team “reasonable time and space to achieve our mutual goals.”
Amid all the debate and recriminations, Pence couldn’t say on Monday whether an invitation for Erdogan to visit the White House next month still stands.
“There’s been no decision made,” the vice president told reporters.
Trump isn’t the first president to struggle with the Syrian war. Barack Obama also vowed to get the U.S. out of intractable Middle East conflicts but ended up pulled into Syria in the later years of his administration. He let Assad violate a “red line” on the use of chemical weapons in order to try to keep the U.S. out of the conflict, but ended up supporting rebel forces before sending in special operations soldiers.
Trump’s latest sanctions suggest a desperate cleanup effort, but also a calculation that getting U.S. troops out of harm’s way is what will be remembered most.
“You now have two administrations, several Congresses and American public opinion coming down and answering the question: Is Syria a vital national interest worthy of the type of commitment it would take to compete with the Syrians, the Russians, the Iranians and the Turks?” Miller of the Carnegie Endowment said. “The answer is a resounding no.”
--With assistance from Laura Litvan.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Wadhams in Washington at nwadhams@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert
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