ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – US President Donald Trump started Monday morning in Washington with a flurry of tweets aimed at justifying his decision to withdraw US troops from northern Syria and to greenlight a Turkish operation against America’s Kurdish allies.
In a statement issued late on Sunday night, the White House said Trump had held a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and agreed that US troops would be withdrawn and that a Turkish operation east of the Euphrates River would begin imminently.
Critics say Trump has thrown America’s Kurdish allies under a bus.
Responding to his critics, Trump said it was time to stop the “endless wars” and “bring our soldiers home”.
“The United States was supposed to be in Syria for 30 days, that was many years ago,” Trump tweeted Monday. “We stayed and got deeper and deeper into battle with no aim in sight.”
Trump took credit for the defeat of the Islamic State group (ISIS), which had seized vast areas of Syria and Iraq in 2014. The US-led coalition had teamed up with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to drive ISIS out of its urban strongholds.
“When I arrived in Washington, ISIS was running rampant in the area. We quickly defeated 100 percent of the ISIS Caliphate, including capturing thousands of ISIS fighters, mostly from Europe. But Europe did not want them back, they said you keep them USA!” Trump said.
The US president accused European powers of failing to take back their nationals who had joined the jihadist ranks.
“I said ‘NO, we did you a great favor and now you want us to hold them in US prisons at tremendous cost. They are yours for trials.’ They again said ‘NO,’ thinking, as usual, that the US is always the ‘sucker,’ on NATO, on Trade, on everything.”
The SDF lost more than 10,000 fighters in the battle to defeat ISIS, aided by Western airpower, training, and equipment. Trump said this aid had been costly.
He then characterized Turkey’s decades-long war with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as a “tribal” war and none of America’s business.
“The Kurds fought with us, but were paid massive amounts of money and equipment to do so. They have been fighting Turkey for decades. I held off this fight for almost 3 years, but it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home.”
“WE WILL FIGHT WHERE IT IS TO OUR BENEFIT, AND ONLY FIGHT TO WIN,” he said, in caps.
True to his isolationist stance, Trump said America is 7,000 miles away and that regional actors will have to “figure the situation out” for themselves.
“Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to figure the situation out, and what they want to do with the captured ISIS fighters in their ‘neighborhood.’ They all hate ISIS, have been enemies for years. We are 7000 miles away and will crush ISIS again if they come anywhere near us!”
Veteran United States Senator Lindsey Graham condemned Trump's decision to withdraw in a thread of tweets published Monday, predicting gains for US adversaries in the Middle East and impunity among its opponents globally.
"By abandoning the Kurds we have sent the most dangerous signal possible - America is an unreliable ally and it's just a matter of time before China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea act out in dangerous ways," one tweet read.
Graham earlier denounced Trump's "shortsighted, irresponsible" decision in a phone interview on Fox News, saying it will "lead to the reemergence of ISIS."
"The caliphate would not have been destroyed without the Kurds," Graham asserted. "The Kurds stepped up to fight ISIS when nobody else would. If we abandon them, good luck getting anybody to help America in the future with radical Islam."
The senator promised to "do everything" he could to sanction Turkey's military and economy "if they step one foot into Syria." In a later series of tweets, Graham announced after discussions with Democratic Party Senator Chris Van Hollen that "bipartisan sanctions" would be introduced if Turkey invaded Syria.
Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, also responded to Trump's comments, saying he could not disagree more.
"The lesson of 9/11 is that terrorists 7000 miles away can still do us great harm. The notion of neighborhoods is obsolete in a global world."
Allowing ISIS to reconstitute itself a strategic error; deserting Kurdish partners is shameful, he added.
Turkey is now clear to launch a fresh operation in northern Syria.
Ankara claims the YPG, the main component of the SDF, is affiliated with the PKK, an armed group which has fought the Turkish state since 1984.
Turkey took control of north Syria's Azaz, al-Bab, and Jazeera areas during Operation Euphrates Shield in 2016 and seized the Kurdish-majority enclave of Afrin in Operation Olive Branch in 2018. It has also established outposts in jihadist-held Idlib.
Ankara has been in the talks with the US for several months about the establishment of a ‘safe zone along the Turkey-Syria border, from which Kurdish forces would be withdrawn and Syrian refugees sheltered in Turkey would be resettled.
Ankara has repeatedly pressed Washington to rein in the YPG and SDF, fearing they pose a threat to its national security.
The SDF has threatened to turn any Turkish invasion into an all-out war.
"We will not hesitate to turn any unprovoked attack by Turkey into an all-out war on the entire border to defend ourselves and our people," SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali tweeted Saturday.
In an English-language press statement released on Monday, the SDF said: "Despite all the efforts we did to avoid conflict, our commitment to the security mechanism agreement and taking necessary steps on our end, the US forces did not carry out their responsibilities and have withdrawn from border areas with Turkey."
"Turkey's unprovoked attack on our areas will have a negative impact on our fight against ISIS and the stability and peace we have created in the region in the recent years. As the Syrian Democratic Forces, we are determined to defend our land at all costs. We call on our Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian, and Syriac people to strengthen their unity and stand by the SDF in defense of their land," the statement added.
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