The Daily - Is the U.S. Betraying Its Kurdish Allies?

Episode Date: October 8, 2019

President Trump vowed to withdraw United States troops from the Syrian border with Turkey. But such a move could harm one of America’s most loyal partners in the Middle East, the Kurds, who have been crucial to fighting the Islamic State. Guest: Eric Schmitt, who covers terrorism and national security for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background coverage: President Trump’s announcement raised fears that he was giving Turkey the go-ahead to move against Kurdish forces in northern Syria.The American pullback could create a void in the region that could benefit Iran, Russia and the Islamic State.American troops have “operated between two allies: Turkey and the Kurds,” our colleagues write in a news analysis. “The problem for Washington has been that the two hate each other.”

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily. Today. President Trump said that he would withdraw U.S. troops from the Syrian border with Turkey, saying, quote, it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous, endless wars and bring our soldiers home.

How that decision could lead to the wholesale destruction of one of America's most loyal allies in the Middle East. It's Tuesday, October 8th. Eric, set the scene for us in northern Syria on Monday. So along the treacherous northern Syrian border with Turkey, United States Special Forces have been moving into small encampments. These are Syrian military outposts, many of them with large concrete watchtowers. Eric Schmidt covers national security for The Times. And the Special Forces in their camouflage gear, their helmets, dark sunglasses,

have been moving in, trying to prevent conflict from spilling over into this very dangerous area. But then suddenly on Monday morning, about two dozen of these troops just suddenly walked off the job, leaving the villagers there puzzled as to what had happened. Why did these soldiers, these American soldiers, leave without any kind of notice? Right. It's not every day that an encampment of American troops just leaves without explanation. No, not at all. And so the big question was, what had happened? Nobody really knew. So what did happen? What explains why these troops essentially walked off base? Well, what had happened is...

Late last night, the White House announced that U.S. troops are beginning a withdrawal. The night before, President Trump had ordered them to leave. There's a lot of disappointment here at the Pentagon this morning. U.S. troops are beginning a withdrawal. The night before, President Trump had ordered them to leave. There's a lot of disappointment here at the Pentagon this morning. U.S. officials tell me they were completely blindsided by the White House order to pull U.S. forces from northern Syria. And basically... This is a major shift with the potential for major national security implications. It betrayed a key ally in the region, and it threatened to imperil many of the counterterrorism gains that the United States had made over the last couple of years and hand a moral victory, if not an actual territorial victory,

to some of the United States' key enemies in the region. So, Eric, I wonder if you could just step way back and explain the dynamics here, the forces at play, and how we get to this decision by President Trump. What exactly is going on here? At the heart of this are really the Kurds. This is a stateless people, and they represent a significant minority in the southeastern part of Turkey. And Turkey sees them as a terrorist group within their own country. But the Kurds are also a very important ally, or at least some of the Kurds are. In Syria, they're a key ally of the United States in its fight against the Islamic State in that area.

The problem for the United States is how to balance these two partners. two partners. One, the stateless entity, Kurds, who are horrific fighters, who proved their mettle in basically kicking ISIS out of northeastern Syria, but are the archenemy of the Turks. The Turks, however, are a longtime, decades-old NATO ally that the United States relies on and has relied on for a long time. It forms a very essential part of security in the region. And the problem for the United States, they're caught in the middle of this, trying to manage them both to keep them from clashing, which would undermine many of the the United States. So what has been the U.S. policy for navigating those tensions? The United States has tried to distinguish between the Kurds who are in Turkey and the Kurds who are in northeastern Syria fighting on behalf of the United States. Turkey, however, continues to believe this is a fiction. Kurds are Kurds. They're all enemies of Turkey. And they've pushed the United States to let them come after Kurds in northern Syria. The United States said, no, no, lay off, leave them alone. And up to now, the Turks have basically had to honor that. They haven't dared challenge the United States military that's there. So as long as American troops are there, the sense is that

this conflict will not actually blow up. The U.S. will somehow kind of keep everybody in their corners. That's right. And that's the way it had been up until last December. There will be a strong, deliberate, and orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria. Very deliberate, very orderly. In December, President Trump ordered all 2,000 American forces in Syria out immediately. Immediately you had the Turkish defense minister talking about massacring the Syrian Kurds, which the Turkish government views as terrorists. These are the same forces that have been protecting the Syrian Kurds, which the Turkish government views as terrorists. These are the same forces that had been protecting the Syrian Kurds.

And suddenly the U.S. was just walking away, basically leaving them at the mercy of the Turkish army. And this withdrawal triggered outrage. We in this Congress and we as a nation are going to be dealing with the consequences of it for years to come. We as a nation are going to be dealing with the consequences of it for years to come. Not only among Democrats, but among Republicans, among allies, who were totally blindsided by the president's announcement. This is a disaster in the making. All of his military advisors have said, we need to leave troops in Syria to work with the Kurds.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, angry that the allies had been blindsided by the president's lack of consultation with this decision, resigned in protest. In his letter of resignation to Mr. Trump, Secretary Mattis wrote that he was leaving because, quote, you have a right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours. And Eric, what about the Kurds? What was their reaction to the U.S. starting to draw down these troops and seemingly start to walk away from them? Well, you can imagine they were furious. This was an ally, they thought, that was standing beside them, that had stood beside them for years now against Turkey. And suddenly, without any notice at all, they were going to lose their buffer.

And suddenly, without any notice at all, they were going to lose their buffer. So despite this backlash, does President Trump move forward with this decision to pull back the troops? Well, yes and no. Here's what's interesting. The president basically overruled all his national security advisors who couldn't believe this had happened. But what happened next was over the next several months, the aides tried to figure out a way to slow down the withdrawal, to mitigate its effects so there wouldn't be this very abrupt pullout of American troops on the ground in Syria. Because they essentially disagreed with it or thought that the pace the president outlined was unproductive. That's right. The trick was, how do you do this without the boss knowing about it and getting angry that his orders aren't being followed?

So by late March, the force had come down to about 1,000 troops. And then the military's plan was basically to pause there rather than to continue further and just not talk about it a whole lot, hoping the president wouldn't focus on the extent to which the American military was continuing its operations there. And always telling him whenever he asked that we are on a plan to draw down. And they were. They are eventually going to do it. They just maybe weren't going to do it at the pace that the president initially thought about. So what exactly were the remaining troops actually doing there? The troops were doing three main things. First, they remained that buffer that we talked about before between the

Turkish military and its Kurdish allies. That was constant. The second thing they were doing was to help enable the Syrian Kurdish forces carry out counterterrorism operations. Because by this summer and even up till just recently, ISIS was starting to make a comeback in Syria. So the U.S. still needed these Kurdish fighter networks on the ground to carry out raids and missions to disrupt or capture and kill some of these terrorists. The third thing they needed the Syrian Kurds to do was continue to detain some 11,000 ISIS fighters that had been captured in the previous battles. And these were held in makeshift prisons, sometimes old schools or warehouses that weren't very secure. And so the American military came in and helped put bars on windows and things like that. So the U.S. needs those Kurdish jailers, if you will, to hold on to these guys. That's a huge concern.

Okay, so these sound like crucial U.S. objectives, and I assume that among the U.S. troops carrying them out are the soldiers who walked off these posts over the weekend. So, how did we get from America committed to carrying out those three missions to these soldiers leaving those posts? Well, meanwhile, as the U.S. has been doing its job, Turkey is agitating more and more on its side. You have to remember that Turkey has absorbed hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees over the past several years because of the civil war in Syria. And for President Erdogan, they're becoming increasingly a political liability. So as he looks across the border, he not only sees his arch enemy, the Kurds, who he wants to push back, he also sees an opportunity to carve out an enclave just

across the border where he would be able to put hundreds of thousands of these Syrian refugees. So they're no longer his problem. They're back in Syria. The problem is this territory he's eyeing is controlled by the Syrian Kurds and their American allies. So by the beginning of August, he's threatening to take matters into his own hand and says, I'm just going to invade and unilaterally carve out this district. The Americans say, whoa, wait a minute, let's work this out. They're very worried about any kind of unilateral Turkish operation that pushes deep into Syrian Kurdish territory that could provoke a clash with these Syrian Kurdish allies they have on the ground, which could imperil U.S. counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State because the Kurdish allies

would be off fighting the Turks. And it could also jeopardize the security of several jails that the Syrian Kurds are holding thousands of ISIS fighters. The Americans fear the worst about what could happen if they don't head this off. worst about what could happen if they don't head this off. So it might not just hurt the Kurds, it might prompt the Kurds to become distracted by a war with an invading Turkish army and suddenly no longer be jailing these ISIS fighters. Suddenly there's an even bigger problem, which is thousands of ISIS fighters who might be on the run. Exactly. And that would be a big, big problem for the United States when they were trying to avoid until Sunday. We'll be right back. So, Eric, what actually happens on Sunday?

Well, Erdogan is tired of waiting. So he goes around this process that's been developed by his own generals and by the American commanders as well. And he arranges a call with President Trump on Sunday. And at the end of this call, he tells the president, I'm going to invade northern Syria, just like I've been threatening to do. And the president, President Trump, basically says, OK, and gives him the green light. In a statement from the press secretary, the Trump administration says that, quote, Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into northern Syria.

The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation. Why would that be? Why would President Trump concede so quickly and so completely to Erdogan, given that he is outlining a unilateral invasion across the border? Well, President Trump has always chafed having American troops tied up in these foreign entanglements. So even though his top national security advisors tell him it's important, in his gut, he wants to get out of these commitments. Particularly after he's already declared that the United States has won over ISIS.

They've defeated ISIS, at least territorially. We have won against ISIS. We've beaten them and we've beaten them badly. We've taken back the land and now it's time for our troops to come back home. So that's one reason. But the other reason is we believe that Erdogan, as he suggested before, told Trump that he could take care of this terrorist problem, whatever remains of it in that part of Syria. And that has an appeal for Trump because Trump has complained that it costs a lot of money to help arm and equip these Kurdish fighters. And it costs a lot of money to help improve these makeshift jails

that they're holding all these ISIS fighters in, fighters that European allies won't take back. And Trump gets very frustrated, and he says so in the White House statement on Sunday night. Well, it was a late night statement released by the White House. They went on to point the finger at some European nations, such as Germany and France, saying that many of these captured ISIS fighters came from there. The U.S. statement saying that European countries refused to take them back, so the U.S. taxpayer will no longer be paying for U.S. forces to be in that vicinity. But let's just take a look. But of course, what it sounds like Erdogan probably didn't say was that what he's told President Trump he will be doing will give him a chance to seek something he has long, long wanted,

which is a chance to go after the Syrian Kurds who are America's allies. That's right. And it's that fear that the United States would not only no longer support the Kurds, but would step back and let the Turkish army pour across the border and slaughter one of its most loyal partners in the fight against ISIS over the last several years that triggered outrage, even among the president's most loyal Republican supporters. What a disaster. I mean, the president's statement through Stephanie Grisham is the caliphate is destroyed. We would not have done that without the Kurds who did all of our fighting. Now we're saying, OK, Turks, go wipe them out or force them out. What kind of message is that to

the next ally that wants to side with us? The Kurds stepped up when nobody else would to fight ISIS. If we abandon them, good luck getting anybody to help America in the future or radical Islam, al-Qaeda and ISIS. I just spoke to a Kurdish official. He said, the Americans have betrayed us. They have opened the door for a Turkish massacre. We are no longer able to fight against ISIS. ISIS might return to the region, and the only one responsible, if that happens,

will be the Americans. Even Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, said other postal powers in the region would also benefit from this. The Russians, the Iranians, the Assad regime in Syria would all be able to take advantage of this power vacuum with the pulling back of the United States. But despite everything you just said, President Trump is clearly compelled by what Turkey's president said to him

over the phone this past weekend. So does Erdogan have credibility when he makes an argument that Turkey can take care of all the things that the Kurds have been doing for the U.S.? Can Turkey actually do any of that? No. It's really hard to believe that the Turkish security services and military, which have had trouble dealing with terrorists in their own country, can carry out an operation in northeastern Syria and take on the ISIS guerrilla networks there. At the same time,

presumably they'd also be fighting Syrian Kurds who were trying to hold on to their homeland. So the argument that Turkey can handle the counterterrorism mission in the northeastern part of the country is really a stretch. But that's kind of music to the president's ears. Somebody else is going to take over the burden. We're pulling back, and ultimately his message is, as he said before, we're pulling out altogether.

That's the goal. That's his goal, at least. Eric, you cover the military. You think a lot about U.S. national security. How much does that philosophy from President Trump, how much does that diverge from the dominant view of U.S. foreign policy? Well, it really flies in the face of nearly two decades worth of experience since September 11th that you need at least a small residual counterterrorism force, whether it's a combination

of military, CIA, to combat extremists who pose a threat to the United States and to American interests around the world. It doesn't have to be a large force, as the United States is demonstrating in northeastern Syria right now. But to pull out altogether and basically wait for the threat of an attack against the United States, that's not the thinking now. The thinking now is strangle that threat where it lies. So Eric, what happens now to the Kurds? What do you expect will be their fate over the next couple weeks and months? So for the Kurds, who've always been a stateless people, they've needed a sponsor, this is truly a dark day. If they're stripped of their American protection, they obviously face the

daunting task of having to confront a Turkish invasion, military invasion. ISIS would probably be emboldened. ISIS would probably attack. So they'd be fighting on at least two fronts. Then you'd have these foreign powers who'd be trying to press in for the resources that are in the territory they control. So the Kurds are really in a bad spot if the Americans withdraw completely. There's also a broader message to American allies around the world, and that is just how good is the American word? No matter how valiant an ally or partner you might be, this episode underscores you might end up like the Kurds one day.

You may end up abandoned. Eric, thank you very much. Thank you. On Monday, Kurdish officials condemned Trump's decision. In a statement, they wrote, quote, Our brave men and women have just won a historic victory over the ISIS caliphate, a victory announced by President Trump and celebrated across the world. To abandon us now would be tragic.

In Washington, both Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress said they would use their power to try to block Turkey from invading Syria. Senators Lindsey Graham and Chris Van Hollen said they would introduce bipartisan legislation to sanction Turkey if it entered Syria, while Senators Chris Murphy and Mitt Romney said they would hold congressional hearings on Trump's decision as soon as possible. Amid the growing backlash, President Trump seemed to walk back his original message, saying he would now seek to restrain Turkey. In a tweet, the president wrote, quote,

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. In their latest demand for documents, the leaders of the House Impeachment Inquiry subpoenaed the Defense Department and the Office of Management and Budget for documents about why the White House withheld nearly $400 million in security aid to Ukraine. Both a whistleblower complaint and text messages from senior U.S. diplomats have raised the possibility that Trump withheld the money in order to pressure Ukraine to carry out political favors, including an investigation

into Joe Biden and his son. And on Monday, a federal judge rejected President Trump's effort to shield his tax returns from New York prosecutors, calling the president's argument that he is immune from such investigations, quote, repugnant to the nation's governmental structure and constitutional values. The New York prosecutors had subpoenaed eight years of Trump's tax returns over the summer. As part of an investigation into hush money, the president paid to women who said they had affairs with him, prompting a lawsuit from Trump to block the subpoena.

Lawyers for the president immediately appealed Monday's ruling, which could eventually require him to hand over the returns. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.