The Daily - Trump’s Plan to Withdraw Troops From Syria

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

President Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from Syria surprised allies and enemies alike, and prompted public disagreement from military and civilian leaders. But the ensuing debate about the role of the United States military may be long overdue. Guest: Mark Landler, who covers the White House for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily Watch. Today, President Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria surprised everyone involved, from U.S. allies to enemies, and has prompted his own aides to publicly disagree with him. But the debate it kicked off about the role of the U.S. military may be long overdue. It's Monday, January 7th. On the morning of December 19th, as Washington was getting ready for a government shutdown,

millions of Americans were getting ready for a government shutdown, millions of Americans were getting ready for the holidays, we started getting word in the Washington Bureau of a major announcement on foreign policy, that President Trump was going to abruptly withdraw all 2,000 American troops currently deployed in Syria to fight against the Islamic State. Mark Landler covers the White House for The Times. We heard about it initially just through sources, although a couple hours later... We do have confirmation in a statement just a short time ago.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the press secretary, confirmed it in a very skeletal two-sentence statement. We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign. And it wasn't until 6.30 in the evening that the president himself actually weighed in. We've been fighting for a long time in Syria. I've been president for almost two years, and we've really stepped it up. President Trump posted a video filmed outside the White House in which he said,

And we have won against ISIS. We've beaten them, and we've beaten them badly. We've taken back the land. The war against ISIS is over. So our boys, our young women, our men, they're all coming back. And they're coming back now. And it's time to bring the troops home. We won.

We want to turn now to that surprise decision by President Trump to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria. This morning, there is growing outrage, even from the president's own allies. This morning, there is growing outrage, even from the president's own allies. His announcement was greeted across the political spectrum with howls of protest and condemnation. I've agreed with most all of President Trump's foreign policy and national security decisions. Donald Trump's supporters tend to be, across the board, hawkish, patriotic, and pro-military. All that said, this is a huge strategic mistake. This is a deeply unpopular move with the military and with kind of traditional hawks.

Why is he... Nobody thinks that ISIS... When is a good time? Nobody thinks ISIS is defeated. Many of the commentators that normally line up behind President Trump on foreign policy came on to Fox. Why would you pull out a job halfway done? ...to say that they had misgivings

and that they opposed the way the president did this. The president's decision is dangerous. I believe it is a catastrophic mistake. Literally no one... I have no understanding of why we're doing this. ...in the Washington establishment... Withdrawal without success is failure. ...seemed to support what President Trump did.

But it didn't end there. One day after that announcement from the president, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says he's stepping down. 24 hours later, his Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced he was resigning on principle because of the policy differences he had with the president. CBS News has learned another senior official will resign over President Trump's decision.

A couple of days later... Brett McGurk will be leaving his post as special presidential envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS. Brett McGurk also resigned in protest. And by the end of the weekend, the Trump administration, particularly on the foreign policy front,

appeared to be in disarray. Mark, why did this decision, of all the decisions that the president has made that feel impulsive, seem to unify so many diverse parts of the American political and military establishment against him. It's partly a question of how he did it and partly a question of the policy interests at stake. Let's take the policy side first. By pulling out of Syria this abruptly, he raised questions about whether he was leaving a vacuum that would allow ISIS, the Islamic State, to come back in. leaving a vacuum that would allow ISIS, the Islamic State, to come back in.

ISIS could grow large once again, or a group could actually converge and be worse than ISIS. And in essence, reoccupy or destabilize the towns that American troops had liberated from ISIS. And by leaving, particularly in the abrupt way he's proposing to do. He has gifted this Christmas season the Middle East to Russia, to Iran, and to ISIS. You're essentially ceding the field to Russia and Iran. Two of our, if not adversaries, countries that we do not see eye to eye with. Absolutely. Adversaries is not too strong a term. And so I think that that was viewed, particularly by Republican hawks, as a very bad step. One of the things that troubled me most about this is that our closest allies in Israel are upset. It also raises issues about Israel's security,

because Israel has been a big supporter of America maintaining an interest in Syria, in part so that Iran doesn't become one of the power players, Iran, of course, being the great adversary of Israel. And without the cover of their U.S. allies, the Kurds in Syria. And then finally, and perhaps most emotionally, it was viewed as a betrayal of the Kurds. The fierce fighters who helped defeat ISIS are now sitting ducks if Turkey decides to attack. The Kurds are stateless people that have been an ally of the United States,

both in Iraq and in Syria. And in Syria, they've been particularly important because these are hardened, well-trained fighters. They fought alongside the United States against ISIS. They're viewed as an important ingredient in our success in pushing back ISIS. And they also face a very potentially grim future without the protection of the United States. Why is that?

Because the Turks, neighbors of Syria to the north, view the Kurds as a dangerous and restive minority in their own country, and they're basically determined to quash the Kurds wherever they can. So for all of those reasons, I think a lot of people, again, Democrats and Republicans alike, view turning our backs on the Kurds as a particularly unforgivable move at this moment. So it sounds like there's a very long list of policy reasons why people think this is a bit of a disaster. There's almost nothing you've just mentioned that seems redeeming. And that doesn't even touch the way the president did it.

The way that the president went about making this decision makes our country an even bigger laughingstock than it already is in the region. The president didn't have what they call a proper interagency debate. He blindsided his own generals with the timing of this. He did it over the objections of his defense secretary. He did it over the objections of his national security advisor, John Bolton. He did not tell our allies. He did not warn the Kurds, nor did he, frankly, consult with anyone on Capitol Hill.

So, in effect, every single mechanical thing that he could have done to roll this out in an orderly and thoughtful manner, he did not do. And that, as much as anything else, helped fuel this overwhelmingly negative reaction. So given all that, why would the president do it, and do it now and this way? Well, the precise motives are still a little bit mysterious because the

president hasn't spoken in any detail about why now. But a couple of things are obvious. I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back home. I want to start rebuilding our nation. One is, President Trump has always felt this way. We have nothing, nothing except death and destruction. It's a horrible thing. He has always been opposed to American military involvement in foreign conflicts. George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.

Remember, he was against the Iraq war. We should have never gone in and destabilized the Middle East. He campaigned on bringing troops home from Afghanistan. Look at Syria. Look at the migration. Look at Iraq. What a mess. Look at Afghanistan. What a mess. Look at everything. He's tweeted that the U.S. has no place in Afghanistan. He's tweeted negatively about the U.S. role in Syria. So we're on track now to spend, listen to this,

$6 trillion. $6 trillion. He believes as a general principle that American involvement in these foreign wars is expensive, Could have rebuilt our country twice. is ill-advised, and runs counter to an America-first foreign policy. So that's where he is philosophically.

What happens then is he has a telephone conversation with the president of Turkey, President Erdogan, who says to him, in essence, we'll take care of this for you. You've already conquered almost all of the territory ISIS held. We'll do the mopping up for you. So for a president who already wanted to go in that direction, he now almost has an open invitation to do so from a very powerful player in the region, and he decides to grab it. So the way it happened, the timing of it, the way he sprang it on his generals, all of that was shocking. But if you look at the president and his record and his philosophy and how he's laid out an

America First foreign policy, it was profoundly unsurprising. It was, in fact, the most predictable thing that you could imagine. This is a president who wants to pull America out of foreign conflicts. He had an opportunity to do so, and he decided to go for it. Mark, what is it about this war that the president, who objects to American interventions broadly, finds so objectionable? Because most people do seem to want the United States to vigilantly keep ISIS at bay and to do almost anything necessary

to make sure that we are not attacked by ISIS. I think the president's objection here is that when he agreed to go along with it, his agreement was we're there to vanquish ISIS and drive ISIS out of the towns that they occupy. And we've done that. Less than 1% of the territory that ISIS held in Syria is still in the hands of the Islamic State.

So by his own very transactional view, we've accomplished our goal. We've won. And I think from his cost-benefit analysis, he literally doesn't understand what an American soldier is supposed to do in a territory once he's driven out the enemy. So I think on those grounds, he simply doesn't see a reason for us to still be in Syria. So if this decision upsets everyone, including his own political base, this has to be seen as a pretty significant miscalculation. I think politically, it was undeniably a miscalculation. But what's interesting, and we often see this with President Trump, is he will, in effect, blunder into raising some important questions. What do you mean?

raising some important questions. What do you mean? We are overdue in this country for a serious, thoughtful debate about what the United States is doing in Syria and Afghanistan, and not just those countries, other countries where we have troops deployed on counterterrorism missions.

And the reason I say that is, in Afghanistan, the Taliban now hold more territory than at any time since 2001. The year we invaded. The year we invaded. That's after 17 years of continual American military involvement in Afghanistan. We now appear further away from victory, however you define it, than we have at any time since the beginning of this conflict. And in Syria, where we've driven the

fighters of ISIS away from 99% of the territory they occupied, there are real questions about what further role American troops have in that country. And beyond that, there's an even broader question about when is the United States going to extract itself from the Middle East, from South Asia, and focus on the geopolitical and economic competition with China, which President Trump has always declared is our greatest foreign policy challenge? So the question that I think we need to contend with is, how do we best fight a counterterrorism battle around the world? Is it by permanently deploying American troops in what people call these forever wars?

Or are there better ways to do it? And I think that President Trump could have stimulated this conversation. And indeed, I think he has been trying to stimulate it for the past several years. I was against it from the beginning. And by the way, we're knocking the hell out of ISIS. We'll be coming out of Syria like very soon. Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon. The problem is the sort of crude way that he sprang this on his own generals, on our allies, on Congress, has had the effect of short-circuiting the debate. So many people are so angry at the way he did it

that it almost prevents us from having the underlying conversation. And that's a real shame. So is part of this, Mark, potentially a sign of the president's frustration with his generals, with the military, who may not be aligned with him at all on this America First approach, who have us staying in Afghanistan despite how endless it's feeling, who wouldn't consider leaving Syria despite real success in nearly eradicating ISIS there. I think that's a very important point because if you look at President Trump's experience

in this area, he has been fighting a low grade battle with the Pentagon and the national security establishment to try to accomplish this broader goal. Last year, he was very hard on his advisors about Afghanistan. Why are we still in Afghanistan? My original instinct was to pull out. And historically, I like following my instincts. And instead of withdrawing troops, which was his inclination,

he was talked into deploying 4,000 more troops. But all my life, I've heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office. The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. Similarly with Syria, he said himself, Our presence in Syria was not open-ended and was never intended to be permanent. that every time he raised the issue of getting troops out of Syria, his generals would say, just give me six more months.

I said, go get them. We need six months. Go get them. And they said, give us another six months. I said, go get them. And when he was in Baghdad, he told the troops, in essence, I told the generals, I said, nope, nope. I said, I gave you a lot of six months. I've already given you six more months.

You don't get another six more. And Jim Mattis, his defense secretary, who resigned in protest over this decision, was one of the people who was actually a problem for the president in this regard. Mattis and the Pentagon have actually pushed back and slow-walked the president on a lot of these policy initiatives. And I think what you also saw in the president's announcement on Syria was a commander-in-chief, in effect, running out of patience, saying, you guys have pushed back on me for too long, and now I'm just going to pull the plug. So finally, Mark, what's going to happen to these 2,000 troops that are based in Syria now?

Well, it's somewhat hard to predict, actually. The president has sent his secretary of state and national security advisor out to the region to talk to the Turks, to talk to the Israelis, to try to reassure our allies. And so we will see a sort of an uptick in diplomatic effort. And I think we will see a withdrawal of forces. But the reason I say it's unpredictable is we have already seen a considerable backsliding from the president's original orders, which were to withdraw troops within 30 days. Now the Pentagon is saying, actually, we'll probably do it over four to six months.

Big difference. Big difference. Also, if you recall, the president went to Iraq the day after Christmas. He visited the troops there. It was his first visit to a war zone. As president... There will be a strong, deliberate, and orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria.

Very deliberate, very orderly. But interestingly, on that visit, he said, we're actually going to be leaving some troops in Iraq, but close to the Syrian border. While maintaining the U.S. presence in Iraq to prevent an ISIS resurgence and to protect U.S. interests, and also to always watch very closely over any potential reformation of ISIS. And we can use those troops to go in and carry out operations against whatever residual ISIS fighters we find there. So he's already saying, look, I'm not going to leave this place completely unattended. There will be American troops in place who could go in. So on a couple

of different fronts, you began to see more nuance in the announcement. And suddenly it was not the abrupt black and white withdrawal that he had announced before the holiday. So I wouldn't rule out the fact that by the time this is all said and done, it takes even longer than four to six months, nor would I rule out the possibility that we leave some vestigial force behind, even in Syria, to sort of carry out limited counterterrorism operations. Which was probably not his original goal. So I wonder if all this backsliding suggests that the way the president did this has undermined

the intent, which was to carry out this consistent philosophy of his. That's a good question. And I'm not sure we know the answer to that because the president, in the case of Afghanistan, has approached the policy in a more thoughtful way. There were many, many policy debates over the past year about withdrawing from Afghanistan. And the net result of that process is we have 14,000 troops in Afghanistan. So I think President Trump's answer to that might be, look, I tried to do it the traditional way. I brought in the Pentagon. We had policy debates. And look at where I am now. Maybe his view is I got to pull the Band-Aid off in a very rough way because that's the only way to get stuff done

in Washington. So I'm not sure we totally know the answer to that. Mark, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. Mark, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. On Sunday, the president's national security advisor, John Bolton, appeared to further roll back the decision to rapidly withdraw from Syria, laying out conditions that could leave American troops there for months or even years.

Speaking to reporters in Israel, Bolton said that U.S. troops would remain in Syria until the Islamic State was fully defeated and Turkey had guaranteed it would not hurt Kurdish troops there. Is this an admission that the president made a mistake? On Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham, a vocal Trump ally on foreign policy, Senator Lindsey Graham, a vocal Trump ally on foreign policy, was asked about Bolton's remarks. This is the reality setting in that you've got to plan this out. And the bottom line here is we want to make sure we get this right, that ISIS doesn't come back. And I applaud the president for reevaluating what he's doing. We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. I may declare a national emergency dependent on what's going to happen over the next few days. On Sunday, President Trump said he was considering declaring the situation at the border to be a national emergency, which would allow him to begin construction of his proposed border wall without the approval of Congress. The president's remarks come as talks to end the government shutdown remain at an impasse, in large part because of the president's demand that any spending bill include $5 billion for the wall.

The shutdown is now in its third week. How close are we to ending this shutdown? Well, I can't say that we're close because the president's made it clear he doesn't care. He's prepared to see a shutdown for months, and he even said years, and reaffirmed that before the cameras. It was stunning to hear a president of the United States say that about his own government, the government we elected him to lead, that that is his position. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.