Today, Explained - A new war in Syria

Episode Date: October 15, 2019

The Trump administration just imposed sanctions on Turkey for invading northern Syria. But it may be too late for America’s Kurdish allies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Trump didn't want those troops to come into Syria. They came into Syria. Turkish troops, along with their own proxies in the country, have started to take over towns. Advancing with the help of Arab militias, the same ones we saw last night executing Kurds by the roadside were at it again today, U.S. officials tell NBC News. Killing Kurds, American allies, including a female Kurdish politician, you're seeing at least over 100,000 people being displaced because of fighting that's happening. Kurdish hospitals have been overwhelmed with casualties, small children among them. Turkish-backed militias took ground quickly and ruthlessly and even executed these Kurdish soldiers,

civilians on the roadside. So if you were looking for the worst-case scenario of what could have happened when Trump made his withdrawal announcement, we're already there. When exactly did Turkish forces enter Syria? The best reporting we have is that it was Wednesday. So the White House made a late Sunday announcement last week that the U.S. troops were withdrawing, which meant about 72 hours later, Turkey came in.

So we've now been dealing with six days of pure violence. What did the Turkish troops do as soon as they entered Syria? Turkish-backed troops, at least from what we've seen from horrifying videos online, have started to shoot at Kurds and in fact kill Kurds. They have started to move further southward. So instead of what Turkey has always said it wanted, about 20 kilometers or so of a buffer zone between the Syrian territory and Turkey itself, it sounds like they're going to move even further southward. What are the Kurds doing? Are they fleeing? Are they fighting or both? A bit of both. The other bit is that they are still continuing to guard certain camps where

there are internally displaced people from the years of the Syrian civil war and where there are even ISIS detainees. But a lot of them, of course, are fleeing because it is just a horrible situation and they are trying to escape being killed. All this as Syria's state news agency says units from the Syrian army are moving north to confront Turkey's offensive. Right now, what you have is Kurdish forces, they have made a deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. So his forces are already in northern Syria. So you're going to start seeing a Turkish-Syria clash that the Kurds will definitely be fighting also on Assad's side. What's the history of the relationship between Syrian Kurds and Bashar al-Assad? The Syrian rebel forces that America had backed for a long time,

originally a lot of them were going against Assad, but then when America started backing an anti-ISIS force, so the Kurds that we've been backing have been pretty much solely focused on defeating ISIS. Assad's mostly been focused on anti-government rebels. So you've seen an American enemy, Assad, now join an American ally, the Kurds, to fight against a mutual enemy, which is Turkey. So to be clear here, Turkey is at war with the Kurds, who are in Syria, and thus the Kurds and Syria are at war with Turkey.

Exactly. And America, right right now nowhere to be seen. And what kind of vacuum does that create for ISIS, which the Kurds were suppressing? The last thing America would want is for more chaos to come out in Syria that would give ISIS room to both recruit and reconstitute its ranks. And yet that's exactly what happened. As Turkey's moved southward into Syria, we've just seen Kurdish fighters try to fend them off. Their attention is taken elsewhere. And there are detainees, many of which are ISIS linked, cheering what's happening right now to the point that they are starting riots, raising tents, going after guards and trying to escape. Hundreds of family members of ISIS fighters today broke out of a detention camp. We visited a prison packed with 5,000 ISIS detainees. There are now attempted breakouts here

daily. And one could imagine that ISIS reconstitutes itself and comes back stronger, you know, months or years from now. And what about the rest of the United States troops that are in Syria? I mean, Trump was talking about moving 50 of them, but there's like another 1,000, right? They were originally 2,000 in December, 1,000 as of March. And what we first heard from the White House last week was, hey, only 50 U.S. troops that are in the north are headed southward because the Turks are coming. What changed is that, and we learned on Sunday from Defense Secretary Mark Esper, he mentions it on two Sunday news shows. So I spoke with the

president last night after discussions with the rest of the national security team, and he directed that we begin a deliberate withdrawal of forces from northern Syria. From northern Syria. Which is where most of our forces are. So 1,000 troops. That's correct. How long? He goes, we have no timeline for the removal. Reports differ. There are some saying it's going to be within days. There are others saying it will be more deliberate. But basically, it's America's getting out. Did President Trump know that this was coming when he said he would move 50 U.S. troops last Sunday?

He surely was warned about this. I mean, last December, he basically tried the same thing, right? We're pulling all U.S. troops out. We have won against ISIS and now it's time for our troops to come back home. That move was reversed because surely someone talked to him about all these ramifications. If this decision is a withdrawal of all of our forces in Syria, now we're dramatically less safe. This is an Obama-like move. But even Trump would tweet like, I have, you know, waited for three years. Now is the time. And so either he knew this was coming and didn't care, or I don't even know if this is worse, but he's withdrawing U.S. troops and then this happened.

But what we know is that Trump was very clearly underprepared for his phone call with Erdogan back on October 6th, I believe it was. And effectively when Turkey said, we want to come in, Trump goes, OK, you handle the ISIS deal. You handle northern Syria. We don't need to be there. And that worked perfectly for Turkey. And Trump clearly didn't think of the ramifications of what could have happened. In his mind, perhaps Turkey was going to live up to its expectations and deal with ISIS and protect the Kurds somehow, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Clearly, that has not happened. So what we are going to see is a lot of these Kurdish forces who were previously backed by the United States in

northeastern Syria are now going to work with the Russians and the regime of Bashar al-Assad. This is a major development because this is exactly what Russian President Vladimir Putin has been trying to do in Syria over a very long period of time. We've even seen on Tuesday the Russian government announced that it has troops effectively in the same area where U.S. troops just left. And so if you are Putin, Trump's withdrawal is a major gift. You put troops where the U.S. was. You now have more influence in Syria. You're helping Assad and you're able to go up against Turkey, which is a NATO ally. This sounds like a powder keg that was waiting to explode for years. And the one thing that was standing in the way was U.S. troops. Why did the president acquiesce last week?

It seems because Erdogan asked him to. Turkey has long been saying it wanted to go into northern Syria to take out the Kurds effectively. The only reason they hadn't done so was because there were a few American troops in the north as a buffer and tripwire that Turkey would not risk shooting against a NATO ally. Well, that risk is gone. And so that's why they're in. And that's why we're in

this mess. After all the blowback the president received when he announced that he was going to pull out troops, he kind of conceded on some level and promised to, quote, totally destroy and obliterate Turkey's economy if they started slaughtering Syrian Kurds. Now that they have started to do that, is he doing anything? Yeah, Trump followed through on his threat. He put out a statement on Monday saying that dealing with Lindsey Graham and many members of Congress, including Democrats, about imposing powerful sanctions on Turkey. Treasury is ready to go. Additional legislation may be sought. There is great consensus on this. Turkey has asked that it not be done. Stay tuned.

And he's sending his vice president, Mike Pence, and his national security advisor to Turkey. The president of the United States called on the president of Turkey to stop the invasion, to enact an immediate ceasefire and to begin negotiations with Kurdish forces in Syria. Treasury Department is about to start putting in penalties on current and former officials of the Turkish government and basically anyone contributing to Turkey's actions in Syria. He's even going to raise steel tariffs up to 50 percent. And that's a big deal. And that basically all like trade negotiations with Turkey are just going to cease for right now. It doesn't we don't really have a timeline for when this is going to happen. But now this is the most credible threat from Trump

that sanctions are coming over Turkey's own actions in Syria. The problem here is that, of course, this is the U.S. going after a NATO ally, and this is going to immediately tank relations between the two countries. But that's only par for the course, because even though they have been allies for decades, the U.S. and Turkey have just not been friends for a while. And this is only the latest and frankly most horrifying aspect of their fall from grace. More on the U.S.-Turkey relationship in a minute on Today Explained. I think the idea behind KiwiCo is you get kids building stuff that KiwiCo sends you, and then maybe you just turn your kids into people who want to build solutions to their problems. And man, let me tell you, the world's got some problems. So, you know, raise the next generation of problem solvers by going to KiwiCo.com

slash explained. You'll get a chance to learn more about KiwiCo. You'll get a chance to try them out for one month for totally free. I know a young man who uses KiwiCo and I asked him, hey, Desmond, are you going to get a KiwiCo crate for Halloween to make your own costume? And you know what he said? He said, no, I already have a couple KiwiCo crates that I'm working on, but also, I already have an idea to make my own costume. Maybe that's the future. Maybe you'll be like, hey, kid,

you want to get a KiwiCo crate to teach you how to build furniture? And your kid will be like, no, dad, I'm already building an entire, you know, outdoor patio set for you. And you'll be like, wow, I I'm already building an entire, you know, outdoor patio set for you. And you'll be like, wow, I'm so glad I got KiwiCo. Alex, the relationship between the United States and Turkey seems like it's about to take a southward turn. Has it always been as rocky as it is right now, or was there some sort of golden age?

There never really was a golden age. The U.S. and Turkey have never really been the most harmonious partners. The best way I can encapsulate it is basically throughout the Cold War, they were friends of convenience because they both were against the Soviet Union. But then you get to the 90s and then they end up being on the somewhat of an opposite side of a U.S. policy decision in the 1991 Gulf War. And that started a tanking in the relationship that's really only gotten worse in recent years. What happened during the Gulf War? Just two hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait.

As the U.S. was fighting in Iraq, it set up a no-fly zone in the northern part of the country. That's where the Kurds happened to be. And the Kurds used that somewhat freedom from being bombed to try to develop their own state, which is Kurdistan, which is they are a large stateless people and believe that they should have their own country. Here's the issue. Northern Iraq happens to be on the border with southeastern Turkey. And Turkey does not like having Kurds on its border, as we already know from Syria. And that's just really been the source of tension between the U.S. and Turkey is that the U.S. will work with the Kurds when Turkey does not want them to. We're talking about some

almost 30-year-old history here. How has the relationship between the United States and Turkey evolved since the Gulf War? They are NATO allies, so they are treaty-bound together, right? That is a big deal. Countries don't necessarily sign treaties with each other that are about defending them if attacked unless they have some sort of reason for being together. The issue here is that when it comes to a lot of Middle East issues, the U.S. and Turkey seem to be a bit on opposite sides. So part of the problem is Turkey believes itself to be a bigger power broker. The U.S., of course, wants to be the power broker in the region. And then if we go to the early 2000s, we have President Erdogan come in and start to move his country, which was a democracy, closer to Iran and to Russia.

And part of that is just geopolitics and needing to, you know, be friendly to countries that are around. But the other part of it is it really seems that Erdogan is moving in a more authoritarian direction, which does not work with our own stated policies. So Erdogan comes into power during George W. Bush's administration. What's the relationship between the U.S. and Turkey been like since then? As one expert told me, the U.S.-Turkey relationship has been nothing less than a slow-motion car crash. On the major issues that Turkey really cares about, which is the Kurds, which is a guy named Fatala Gulen who Erdogan believes tries to do a coup against him. Turkey's government now with threatening words for the Obama administration, demanding the

extradition of the Turkish cleric who lives in Pennsylvania, whose supporters they accuse of spearheading the uprising. When it comes to relationships with Russia. Turkish President Recep Erdogan defied the U.S. and fellow NATO allies by purchasing a new missile system from Russia. When it comes to democracy in his own country, the U.S. and Turkey are on opposite sides. They have kind of worked together despite these disagreements. But what we're seeing now is that at least when it comes to Erdogan, he's not really sitting around anymore, especially on the Kurdish issue. And so this slow motion car crash is finally like completing. We've reached the point where, you know, the cars have accordioned and it's really hard to break them apart.

But this car crash is kind of like lopsided. I mean, on one hand, you have President Trump removing troops from Syria, which allows Turkey to go in and fill this vacuum. And on the other hand, you have President Trump threatening sanctions and saying that the Turks need to respect the Kurds and maintain this fight against ISIS. I mean, what's Turkey to think of President Trump's sort of two-sided policy here? That he's an easy mark. I mean, if you're Turkey, you've played this perfectly well. If you are in Erdogan's head, you're thinking, I have a guy who has consistently said I want out of Syria. I have a guy who does not seem to understand the intricacies of the Kurdish-Turkish issue and will sanction me

likely even if I go in. But by that point, I will have established what I wanted, which is the buffer zone and even have some control over northern Syria. So all it takes, it seems, is to get Trump on a phone call and make the ask and Trump goes, OK, you got it. And to some extent, I blame the people around Trump because they've got to know that Trump is going to acquiesce to that. There's no way that Trump toes the American policy line of, oh, we will stay in northern Syria until we do a diplomatic agreement between the Turks and the Kurds and a power sharing and local governance. Trump doesn't care about that. He has been consistent since the campaign. I want my troops out. So Turkey has just had this given to them

on a silver platter. And if you're Erdogan, every time you get on the phone with Trump or every time you meet him, you say, hey, man, let us go in and you guys can get out. And Trump, likely not having all of this in his head, goes, you got it, dude. If this was just a gross miscalculation on President Trump's part, is it too late to undo? Yeah, man, way too late. Look, the U.S. was allied with the Kurds. The Kurds are now allied with Assad. They're not going to come back. And why should they?

There's no reason for them to trust the U.S. anymore. This was almost literally the absolute worst way to do it. A Sunday night statement from the press secretary with no one knowing what's going on. And then on top of that, looking like, oh, and there was this somewhat agreement where Trump said to Erdogan, come in, Turkey, you do our job for us when they clearly were never going to do that. Where does that leave the region now? I mean, how is the power balance shifted? Well, if you want an American presence in the Middle East, there still is some. Don't get me wrong, but it's just not in Syria. The U.S. did not have many hands to play in Syria. What it had was those thousand troops. That card is gone. We have no cards to play.

And so what you're going to see now is Russia and Iran have greater authority to operate in Syria. You have Assad gaining back territory that the Kurds had thanks to American help and protection. You've got Turkey moving southward to pursue its own anti-Kurd strategy, which means you're going to have a Syria-Kurd-Russia versus Turkey war. That is the big fear. And in fact, that's somewhat happening right now. And if you are the U.S., you're thinking, wait, our NATO ally is in a war. Does that mean the U.S. may have to come to Turkey's aid down the line? Like these are the kinds of things that they should have thought about and briefed Trump on.

And if Trump was not going to think through these things and come out with a clear message to Erdogan, they shouldn't have put him on that call. They put him on that call. Erdogan got what he wanted. And now a lot of people are dying because of that unpreparedness. Alex Ward is one of the hosts of the Worldly podcast from Vox. Every Thursday, he and his co-hosts break down U.S. foreign policy and the most important news happening around the world. And you can always find out more about Syria from Alex at Vox.com. I'm Sean Ramos-Firum. This is Today Explained.

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