generalspeaking

Saturday, December 22, 2018

Mice Cast Asunder the Plans of Men

"We had decided last week to launch a military incursion in the east of the Euphrates River. Our phone call with President Trump, along with contacts between our diplomats and security officials and statements by the United States, have led us to wait a little longer."
"[We would prefer to hold off] until we see on the ground the result of America's decision to withdraw from Syria [though delaying the operation should not be confused with its outright cancellation]."
"Of course this is not an open-ended waiting process."
"We don't have our eyes on anyone's land. Yet, our stance regarding any attack to originate from Syria is clear. We can make no concession on security. The ongoing incidents in Syria, both in their security and humanitarian respects, are of direct concern to our country."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

"[The Kurds of the YPG have] talked about maybe even releasing thousands of ISIS prisoners so they can use the men guarding them to help with the fight against Turkey, if that's what's going to come [though a YPG spokesman denies this]."
"The general concern — Britain, France and elsewhere in NATO — is that this U.S. troop withdrawal could lead ISIS to regroup and have a resurgence. It's lost most of its territory, but it has many supporters still lying low in both Syria and Iraq."
Peter Kenyon, reporter, National Public Radio

"What Turkey is going to do is unleash holy hell on the Kurds."
"In the eyes of Turkey, they're more of a threat than ISIS. So this decision is a disaster."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican, South Carolina

President Donald Trump, left, talks to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as they tour the new NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, July 11, 2018.

Tatyana Zenkovich/The Associated Press

"A major clue to understanding Trump’s unexpected action was provided by an unnamed U.S. official quoted by Reuters who said that the decision had come after the phone call between Trump and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on December 14. The official added, “Everything that has followed is implementing the agreement that was made in that call.” According to a senior Turkish official quoted by ABC, Trump told Erdogan during the call that “he was planning to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.” In fact, Trump’s move came as long-standing U.S.-Turkish differences over northern Syria had once again threatened to flare up into a major dispute between the two countries."
"On December 12, Erdogan had once again denounced U.S. military engagement with the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG)—identified by Ankara as an integral part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey has been fighting for decades—in the context of the ongoing fight against the Islamic State under the umbrella of Syrian Democratic Forces. After registering his usual complaints about the provision of “20,000 truckloads and over 3,000 planeloads of military supplies” to YPG and the failure of the United States to implement the June roadmap the two countries had agreed to in June 2018 involving the departure of Syrian Kurdish elements from Manbij, west of the Euphrates, Erdogan had threatened to send Turkish troops into the area between the river and the Syrian-Iraqi border where U.S. forces were stationed “in a few days” to “cleanse it of terrorists.” Confirming that there would be “no hostility against U.S. soldiers in Syria,” Erdogan said, “in spite of everything, we continue to see the U.S. as a strategic ally with whom we can advance together in the future if we can agree on the right basis."

Bulent Aliriza, Director and Senior Associate, Turkey Project, CSIS (Center for Strategic & International Studies

No prior consultation with is national security team or allies and despite objections from everyone with a stake in the struggle against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, President Donald Trump made his decision to abandon the U.S. alliance in its combat strategy with the Syrian YPG and withdraw the two thousand U.S. troops and the American air cover mission in Syria against ISIL. This, according to American and Turkish officials, both speaking on condition of confidentiality and for obvious enough reasons.

The reversal that has the effect of ceding the entire area of that portion of the Middle East to Iran, Turkey, Hezbollah and Syria, took everyone by surprise, including the president's Cabinet, U.S. lawmakers and their international allies. None more so, however, than the Kurds for whom this will mean an all-out war with Turkey, not of their choosing, but which will have been imperiously imposed upon them by an Islamist dictator whose mission appears to be the entire eradication of Kurds from the territory; by lethal means, preferably.

A telephone call between Trump and his Turkish counterpart on December 14 led to Trump agreeing with Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the United States need no longer linger in Syria, that Turkey was more than capable of wiping out what was left of ISIL, as though that constituted a swift mop-up operation of several hundred hold-outs. Lost in the conversation was that ISIL leaders had Turkey's backing and Turkey was a willing conduit for ISIL oil out of the 'caliphate'. Seemingly oblivious of the death sentence he would be imposing on loyal, courageous Kurds, Trump blithely announced the U.S. troop evacuation from Syria.

Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, along with several other ranked Cabinet members urgently sought to persuade Trump of the necessity to reverse his impulsive decision; at the very least to suspend it for the time being, but to no avail, leaving General Mattis little option but to tender his resignation for it was obvious there was nothing more he could do to protect his country and the world at large from the moral ravages being imposed upon it by a president he could no longer address as 'his' president and commander-in-chief.

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

....going to be there for three months, and that was seven years ago - we never left. When I became President, ISIS was going wild. Now ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. We’re coming home!

77.7K

11:30 AM - Dec 22, 2018

Neither the U.S. State Department nor the Pentagon can be in much of a celebratory mood in the past week. The estimated tens of thousands of ISIL fighters remaining in Iraq and Syria and the continuing attacks they have mounted will be certain to result in a restoration of their influence in the region with the absence of an American military presence in Syria. A list of talking points had been prepared for Trump by members of his team; including Pompeo and Mattis; a list he disdained to use and simply ignored, particularly the note impelling Trump to compel Erdogan to back off his threats.

Where Trump on a previous occasion had convinced Erdogan that an attack on the Kurds should be shelved, no such advice was advanced on this occasion. U.S. Central Command chief General Joseph Votel on Wednesday informed his commanders in the field and their Kurdish allies of the stark and startling decision on the part of the President of the United States for whom the very concept of 'allies and courage and loyalty' appear to be completely alien.