Since Donald Trump became U.S. president the country has been astonished and shocked on an almost daily basis by his own actions or by accusations leveled against him, ranging from secret connections to the Kremlin and cheating in his businesses, charities and marriage.
But during that almost two years, America has not been rattled as much as over the last week since Trump suddenly announced that he was pulling U.S troops out of Syria.
The 2000-strong American, military contingent in Syria was there to deal with the un-vanquished remnants of ISIS Islamist extremists but also in support of the Kurds.
The Kurdish population, divided among different countries, has fought and suffered to create its own state for centuries.
Its fighting forces have often been called “terrorists” by its enemies as they fought courageously, and always vastly outnumbered, for independence. The Kurdish population has been punished frequently and savagely by tyrants of the neighboring “superior” nations that deny the Kurds, an ancient peoples, have the right to sovereign statehood. Remind you of anyone?
For many years the Kurds, who have carved out an autonomous area in Iraq and hoped to add Kurdish ethnic areas of Syria, have been America and the West’s most loyal and militarily efficient, allies in the Middle East. Washington has armed and trained much of its forces and in return they fought bravely alongside American troops to counter the Islamic extremists of ISIS. Sunni Muslims themselves, they protected and liberated not just Kurds but others being slaughtered and raped by ISIS.
A death warrant for the Kurds
The Turkish government wants to wipe them out because it fears the Kurds will try to take control of traditionally ethnic Kurdish areas of Turkey. Turkey, although flirting with Russia, is a NATO member and as long as the Kurdish forces were U.S. allies, it was difficult to attack them.
Earlier this month though Trump spoke by phone to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who apparently convinced him to withdraw the American troops.
The Americans in Syria are themselves a militarily small force but an enormously significant symbol – a “tripwire” for a stern U.S. response were they to be attacked.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Trump regularly praises and whose lies he prefers to the assessments of every American intelligence agency, is also deeply embroiled in Syria. Putin’s military has propped up fellow murderous dictator, Bashar Hafez al-Assad’s repressive regime.
The Kurds and Russians have also clashed in Syria. Earlier this year the American military, including its air force, killed an estimated up to 300 Russian “mercenaries” attacking a Syrian oil field guarded by U.S. and Kurdish forces.
By ordering the withdrawal of American forces Trump has effectively signed a death warrant for the Kurds.
Turkish forces, massively superior in numbers and weaponry, are poised to attack the Kurds. Russia wants revenge for the rout inflicted upon their forces. They daren’t attack Americans but they will relish joining in the slaughter of the Kurds.
Trump abandoning Syria to deflect disgrace
Trump’s action shocked even those who thought they had grown immune to his routine lying and relentless tweeted output of bizarre decisions, insults and ignorant pronouncements.
He had mentioned last march he wanted to pull out troops but that notion seemed to fade.
Many think he revived the plan at this time to deflect attention from a flurry of recent damaging stories exposing his associates’ secret dealings with the Kremlin, business cheating, including by a Trump charity that chiefly benefited Trump himself, and numerous lies.
It emerged that Trump took the decision to pull out the American troops without consulting the very members of his administration who are responsible for military matters and U.S. foreign policy.
Foremost of these was America’s defense secretary, General Jim Mattis, who tried to persuade Trump that withdrawal from Syria was not only a bad idea militarily but a disgraceful act of betrayal.
Mattis, a courageous military leader and accomplished scholar, is also known for the high value he places on a person’s honor. He had given his word to the Kurds that America would not abandon them and he resigned when he couldn’t persuade Trump to reverse that profoundly dishonorable decision.
So every friend of America’s around the world – traditional, old allies like Britain, France and other western countries as well as post-communist democracies like Ukraine and Poland threatened by Moscow – are wondering what Washington’s word is now worth.
Many Pentagon and State department officials believe ditching the Kurds and the Third-Worldish manner in which it was done, will dangerously undermine America’s authority on the international stage.
Mattis was one of the senior officials in Trump’s administration who, in contrast to the president, knows Putin as a murderer and crook and has worked to check Kremlin military aggression and intimidation.
Others were also senior military figures who studied Russia all their professional lives and know its character well. They include presidential chief of staff General John Kelly, who, like Mattis, leaves at the end of this year, and former national security adviser Gen. H. R. McMaster, who left last April.
Along with some other officials dubbed “the adults in the White House” they managed to curb or correct the president’s dumbest – sometimes verging on traitorous – foreign policy inclinations.
Putin’s delight
Mattis, in particular, had worked hard to smooth anxieties over Trump with NATO allies and to bolster the capacity of European democracies to resist a Moscow that’s massively boosting its own military might and seemingly hellbent on rebuilding some sort of empire.
Putin couldn’t conceal his delight at the decision by Washington to abandon its allies in Syria and at the departure of some of the Kremlin’s fiercest opponents and staunchest friends of Ukraine.
Trump’s decision meant he was not only enfeebling Washington’s ability to influence the dynamics in Syria but also valuable leverage that could be applied over Russian behavior elsewhere, including in Ukraine.
Putin – at a a time when Moscow is already ramping up its forces threatening Ukraine – will inevitably be emboldened to increase intimidation and actual aggression against Ukraine.
From the Kremlin’s point of view, if Trump has dumped an ally that has actually spilled blood fighting alongside Americans, how much easier for him to ditch Ukraine, which he has, anyway, hinted several times is Russia’s “backyard”?
Mattis was supported by politicians from both Trump’s Republican Party and the Democrats – nearly all were dismayed at his resignation.
The process to appoint Mattis’ successor will likely take months and could turn into a bipartisan effort to ensure the world’s largest military is run by someone who reflects America’s long-term interests and is not just an obedient Trump sycophant.
Putin will see this period as an opportunity to advance his imperial delusions and Ukraine could be entering one of the most dangerous phases of its war with Russia.
