Brian M Downing
President Trump unexpectedly announced a pullback of US troops from the Turkish border in the Kurdish region of Syria. The US in recent years patched together an effective fighting force comprising Kurdish and Arab militias which defeated ISIL. The US will, for now, remain with Kurdish-Arab forces just to the south.
The pullback was not done after consultation with security experts in government. The generals evidently were not apprised and there are many vacancies in State and Defense. The president may have acted on his oft-mentioned instinct that tells him we are involved in costly, pointless wars.
The move is being widely criticized on both sides of the aisle. The Kurds are being sold out yet again, many claim. Some of the criticism is of course partisan in nature. Some fear the worst for the Kurds.
The Kurds and the region
The US pullback may move the Kurds closer to the Syrian government. It’s important to bear in mind that, unlike the Sunni Arabs, the Kurds were not warring with Assad. Early on in the conflict Assad offered concessions to the Kurds if they supported him. The Kurds concentrated on fighting various Sunni rebels, especially the more extremist ones, and received help from Damascus in the form of Russian airpower.
As fighting dwindled, the Kurds maintained a dialog with Damascus. No doubt they suspected that American commitments in the region would not be indefinite. In this respect they were more astute thinkers than many American counterparts. Reintegration while not entirely welcome would simply be a return to prewar political arrangements, perhaps with greater autonomy.
The move may ease conflict between the US and Turkey at least somewhat. Ankara has been craftily sidling up to Moscow as a way of triangulating between Russia and the US – getting leverage against both. Tensions may increase between Russia and Turkey as Moscow and Damascus will oppose a deeper Turkish presence in Syria – a small win for the US.
Kurdish defenselessness
Many critics claim the Kurds will be helpless in the face of a Turkish incursion. As noted, the Kurds will have help from the Syrian government and perhaps even Russia. It has an airbase and thousands of troops and mercenaries on hand.
The Turks must know the Kurds have considerable combat experience and formidable weaponry and caches, including an array of antitank weapons. Furthermore, the Kurds will be fighting from the advantage of defensive positions on home soil. The Turks would be ground down for as long as they chose to operate inside Syria, worsening tensions between Erdogan on the one hand and the army and much of the Turkish public.
The Kurds will have some foreign help. Turkey’s Kurdish population would almost certainly make common cause, striking army supply lines and security facilities. Iraqi and Iranian Kurds might make the trek to help. Israel has long supported the Kurds as enemies of its enemies, whether Saddam’s Iraq or the mullahs’ Iran.
ISIL comeback
Another concern is that the US pullback, partial though it is, will allow ISIL to reconstitute itself and renew its aspirations for land and caliphate. This is highly unlikely.
ISIL has been reduced to an underground network surrounded by well-armed people that, though hostile to Damascus and Baghdad, despise the murderous jihadi bands even more. ISIL has access to recruits and money from nearby countries, especially Saudi Arabia, and can pull off bombings and assassinations, but becoming a fearsome mechanized-infantry force, as it was five years ago, is impossible.
ISIL and AQ are shifting to Central Asia where they hope to punish Russia for thwarting their efforts in Syria. Nothing should be done to keep them in the Levant.
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The Kurds are a valiant people who deserve a homeland. However, the US should not establish one, let alone guarantee its independence in perpetuity. The region is landlocked and populated by tribal and ethnic groups with long histories of mutual mistrust and infighting. The US presently heads a miscellany of twenty or more Arab and Kurdish groups who are unlikely to ever form a stable government. The US – specifically its overextended military – would be the arbiter of disputes and suppliers of services for decades even generations to come.
President Trump would do well to heed his instincts more and listen less to the mavens of costly interventions.
© 2019 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.