Today, Explained - The troop withdrawal withdrawal

Episode Date: January 8, 2019

National security advisor John Bolton traveled to Turkey to meet with President Erdogan, who cancelled today. It's the latest development in a very messy troop withdrawal President Trump announced in late December. Vox's Jennifer Williams explains what the clusterf**k happened. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this Tuesday, January 8th, 2019 episode of Today Explained comes from Quip Electric Toothbrushes. Over 1 million mouths employ the Quip Electric Toothbrush for their cleaning services. And you can get started over at getquip.com slash explained. Where the Quip starts at just $25 and your first set of refills is free. getquip. com slash explained. Jen Williams, you are one of the hosts of the Worldly podcast here at Vox, and there's been this whole back and forth about troop withdrawals in the last few weeks, and it all started with a tweet? Right. Well, it all started on December 19th when the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had ordered the troop withdrawal from Syria.

So Vox's defense reporter, Alex Ward, like immediately emails the Pentagon for comment, and they reply that at this time we continue to work by, with, and through our partners in the region. So this kind of like noncommittal, like vague, we don't know what the hell's going on kind of thing. Yeah. And then literally one minute after he gets that response from the Pentagon, Trump tweets out this tweet saying, we have defeated ISIS in Syria,

my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency. And then right after that, he posts this wild video where he basically announces that he's pulling troops out of Syria. So our boys, our young women, our men, they're all coming back and they're coming back now. We won and that's the way we want it. And that's the way they want it. And what was the immediate reaction here in the United States? It was basically pandemonium. Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, freaked out. He issued this

statement saying that an American withdrawal at this time would be a big win for ISIS, Iran, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, and Russia. I fear it will lead to devastating consequences for our nation, the region, and throughout the world. To those who say we have defeated ISIS in Syria, that is an inaccurate statement. Trump's Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, resigns basically over this decision. It was a big deal. And a lot of senators on both sides of the aisle were super pissed off and freaked out. And Trump said that he basically fired Jim Mattis. Do we know what the reality was?

Was Mattis donezo and walked out? I know I read his resignation letter over the break. So he basically had made this like last ditch effort to convince Trump, like, please don't do this. Like after he tweets this stuff out, right? He apparently drafts this letter, this resignation letter, and then goes to the White House and is like, look, dude, like, can I just convince you to maybe walk this back or whatever? Apparently Trump just sticks to his guns. And then Mattis says, OK, then I'm officially resigning. So he put his, like, resignation, like, effective as of, like, I think in February or something like that and so Trump then

turns around after apparently reading the resignation letter which was like super not nice to Trump apparently Trump reads that as like oh now you can go ahead and just leave effective as of December 31st like how about you just leave now right so I mean he you know Mattis resigned but Trump was like you can't resign because you're fired, kind of like that. It feels like, you know, everyone was surprised by this decision, including the Secretary of Defense. Why was it made in late December? Right. Not only was everyone surprised, like even the person who kind of asked Trump to do this was surprised. So the reason why it happened right now, as far as we can tell, is that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was on a phone call with President Trump.

And he was basically saying, Erdogan was saying like, hey, we plan to launch this military offensive against the Kurds. Now, the Kurds are this like group that the U.S. has partnered with on the ground since like the fight against ISIS in Syria began.S. has partnered with on the ground since like the fight against ISIS in Syria began. Sure. They're our allies. And we basically had this kind of deal where it's like, look, we will protect you against

mainly Turkey because Turkey sees the Kurds as this like terrorist group because they want to form their own like country. And they've been fighting against the Turkish government for decades. And so we basically said, look, we will defend you against the Turks and make sure that like nobody comes in and tries to knock out this like area that you're trying to establish for your own country. On the flip side, like what you're going to do for us is you're going to help us fight ISIS. And so they've been this like really effective partner in fighting ISIS for us and with us in Syria. So Erdogan calls up Trump and says like, hey, I'm about to launch

this offensive against the Kurds, which is the thing we said we would protect the Kurds against. Right. And Trump, having long said he wants to pull out of Syria, having not really caring why we're there, he believes we've defeated ISIS. Right. So he's like, all right, well, shit, I'm not going to keep American troops there if they're going to get in the way of this offensive, because, you know, potentially if that happens, we could get into like a shooting war with Turkey, who just a reminder is a U.S. ally in NATO. Right. And like they host our nuclear weapons there.

So like that would be bad. It would be like two, you know, really close allied countries accidentally getting in a shooting war. So Trump like already wants to do this. Erdogan basically gives him the excuse. So Trump says, yeah, you know what? This guy makes a good point. Like ISIS is defeated. And he like on the phone, he says, like throws to his advisors and says, like, look, why are we still there? Like, why are we still in Syria? We know that he was still on the phone.

Yeah, it seems according to reporting, he's still on the phone and basically like stops and goes, yeah, Erdogan just made a good point. ISIS has basically defeated. What the hell are we still doing there? And the insurgencers, I imagine, are scrambling. They're like, oh, God, no, just stop. Don't ask that question right now. And he's like, all right, cool, so we'll pull out.

And apparently Erdogan actually freaks out and is like, oh, shit, okay, I was not expecting you to say yes. How did everyone else in the region react to it? Everyone else was super freaked out too, right? Like, the fact that Trump wanted to pull U.S. troops out of Syria was not a surprise, right? He's been saying this forever. He's been saying that since he was on the campaign. Like, that is not a surprise. The issue is that, like, his military advisors, including Jim Mattis,

have been explaining why, like, pulling out right the second is not the best idea and had convinced him. And so, you know, people knew this was like kind of in the background, but nobody really knew that it was like about to happen. And so Israel in particular freaked out because they really like having U.S. forces on the ground in Syria to like fight against and push back against Iran's influence. Yeah. Because they don't want Iran to get like super strong in Syria, which is like right on the border with Israel. Right. And they're like, well, wait a second. Did you run this by us? Like, you know, now we're like a bigger threat. So, yeah, a lot of people were super freaked out by this. And so you see, you know, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, like calling up the the Trump administration, like, you guys want to chat about this?

Because what if we didn't do this? And that's why we had this kind of crazy back and forth starting, right? Right. So tell me more about that back and forth. What has it been like domestically since the decision was announced? Right. So not only did Mattis resign, we also during this kind of like period around Christmas time and New Year's, Brett McGurk, who was the U.S. special envoy to ISIS, he also resigned. And then we see Trump starting to kind of revise his original like timeline. He originally said like 30 days, like we're out, right? Like we're getting out right now.

And then he starts to kind of revise it to, like, four months, right? It's going to be, like, over the span of several months. And people were like, okay, so are we or aren't we? Like, are we pulling out or not? And it was kind of like that until Sunday when we got what could be considered absolute clarity of what this means. From John Bolton. Right, from Trump what this means. From John Bolton. Right.

From Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton. What does he say again? So he and Pompeo basically have been sent to the Middle East to go like calm down everyone who's freaking out. So Bolton goes to Israel and he tells reporters there and tells the Israelis, look, we're going to pull out. You know, we're going to pull out of Syria. But there are two conditions before we do that. One, we're not going to do that until ISIS is, like, completely defeated. And two, we're not going to do that until we basically get a guarantee from Turkey that the Kurds are going to be safe.

Which, like, that's a super clear policy. It's also the literal exact opposite policy of what Trump has been saying the entire time. Because that's basically the status quo. Like the reason we're still in Syria is to make sure that ISIS is totally defeated, which they aren't now, and to protect the Kurds. So like we're now back to like status quo ante where we were before Trump made this decision. And like in any other situation, right, in any other administration, Bolton's statement would be like a super clear, credible statement of U.S. policy. Right.

Except that we are not in any other administration. We're in the Trump administration, which means we literally have no fucking idea if that's the real U.S. policy. And Bolton dropped by Turkey today to meet with President Erdogan, and that didn't go so well, did it? Yeah, not so much. So Erdogan abruptly canceled the planned meeting with Bolton when Bolton was already there in Ankara, like, about to meet with him.

Yeah. Erdogan was like, yeah, no, I'm canceling this meeting. And then he proceeded to go in front of his parliament and explain why, and he straight up said, it is not possible for us to swallow the message that Bolton gave from Israel. So, you know, he basically was like, yeah, what you just said about us making a deal with you to not attack the Kurds, we're not going to do any of that thing that you said at all. We're going to do the thing that we already talked to Trump about on that phone call, right?

So, wow, what does that do for, I mean, you're saying the president's on the phone call with the leader of Turkey. The leader of Turkey plants an idea in his head while still on the phone. He's like, hey, let's revamp our military strategy in the Middle East. Yeah. Then starts tweeting about it. Yeah. Before even most of our allies had been alerted to it, before the Pentagon seemed to even really know that this was happening. Like he just made a giant significant decision about U.S. troop deployment in a foreign country and doesn't seem to have actually run that past like the people who were in charge of, you know, bringing those troops home or like the other allies who were involved. Like the European allies who are also part of that coalition fight with us against ISIS.

Like he just did it. And now the result is that we're seeing this scramble and this back and forth of, like, what is the policy? What isn't the policy? And, like, the broader point here is that, like, you can't do foreign policy that way. Imagine if you're, like, a Kurdish fighter. Do you keep trusting the U.S. to have your back? Do you start making alliances with, with like Iran and the Assad regime? If you're Israel, like what do you do? You like trust that Bolton is really telling the truth?

Or do you like hedge your bets and go, well, shit, I don't know if I can trust this guy because Trump keeps tweeting other stuff. Like this is not how to run U.S. foreign policy. This is a clusterfuck. Coming up, the two conditions to the United States' withdrawal. Defeating ISIS and taking care of the Kurds. This is Today Explained. Don't know if you made any New Year's resolutions yet? Thank you. when you're like walking around the city or something. But another one you could get into if you're into it is buying a Quip electric toothbrush and taking better care of your mouth. The Quip happens to be accepted by the American Dental Association. It's one of the first with thousands of verified five-star reviews.

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It's J-O-N-A-L-T-E-R-M-A-N. I'm Senior Vice President, the Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and the Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Okay. Now I'll ask some real questions.

We're not done. I thought this is all the time I have. Just announcing my title. That was the whole thing. Okay, so Dr. Altman, there are two major conditions to the United States' withdrawal from Syria. One is not until ISIS is defeated, and two is, you know, not if the Kurds are in a precarious position, if they're unsafe. So I want to understand each of those a little more, starting with ISIS. How exactly is ISIS doing right now? Well, ISIS is down but not out. And one of the challenges of ISIS is it's

strong because it's always been a very adaptive organization. It's been an online ideology. It's been a fighting force. It's been a terrorist group that does onesies and twosies and a bunch of lone wolves in Europe and elsewhere. It has been a federated set of armies that operate in Tunisia and Libya and Egypt and Yemen and a whole bunch of other places. So what we talk about when we talk about ISIS is we're actually talking about a lot of things, some of which rely on activities in Syria, some of which are inspired by what's happening in Syria, and some of which might only have a little bit of relationship to things in Syria, but in many ways are independently owned and operated

franchises. What's really hard is determining when an idea is dead. When does ISIS lose its ability to inspire anybody in Syria to do anything? The reality is we're likely not to know that. ISIS is going to be able to disrupt. ISIS is going to be able to kill people in Syria for a long time to come. What is good enough is going to be in the eye of the beholder. And how about the second major concern here, the Kurds? Bolton failed to get a meeting with Erdogan today. Is a deal still possible?

Well, you can make a deal with Turkey, but it's not necessarily a deal that's going to protect Kurdish interests. The United States has long seen the Kurds differently than the Turks. And the fact is that for years, the Kurds have spilled blood on behalf of U.S. interests. And granted, they're also Kurdish interests, but the Kurds have taken it on the chin and allowed us to have a very light footprint because they were fighting for their own futures. Walking away from the Kurds not only affects our interests in all the areas where there are Kurdish populations, which is Syria and Iraq and even Iran, and certainly into Turkey. But it also sends a signal to other allies of the United States, other groups that the United States has been supporting, that maybe U.S. support is transitory. Maybe the U.S. will stand by you as long as it's in their narrow self-interest, but as soon as the conditions change, the U.S. might walk away too. And that has an impact

for a lot of people in both non-state actors and also governments that have been sacrificing on behalf of what they thought was a partnership with the United States, which turns out perhaps to be a short-term employment agreement. So what's Erdogan's play here? He had a deal with Trump. Now he doesn't, but he wants that deal back? My read of President Erdogan is that he is a pro. I think that the way President Erdogan handled the phone call with President Trump is one of the great intelligence coups of the 21st century, because clearly his intelligence service prepared him for the phone call. The president went into the phone call, and the president's task was to persuade the Turks not to move against U.S. allies among the Kurds.

And what he ended up with was the president saying, you take care of it. Ultimately, I think President Erdogan has done this job for a long time. He's a very savvy actor. He's playing a relatively weak hand incredibly well. And he has a lot of cards to play, and he is playing them artfully. I think just flattering him is not going to get you far. I think Erdogan has his eye very much fixed on how does he get out of the difficult economic situation he's in, how does he use vulnerabilities with Syria and convert them into assets for Turkey?

It looks like Trump's having to walk back his decision because everyone in his national security apparatus disagrees with him. But there are surely a whole lot of Americans who do think, yeah, it's time to leave Syria, right? I mean, one of the interesting things is the extent to which the president, in many ways, has his finger on the pulse of American politics more than the national security establishment, more than the sort of elite foreign policy world, which has convinced itself that pulling out of Syria suddenly is a terrific mistake. I think the American public thinks pulling out of Syria is not only not a mistake, but it's long overdue. How that plays out, how the president manages that and how the bureaucracy manages that is something we've yet to see.

But I think one of the interesting things about this is this is another case where the president really does have his finger on the politics more than unelected people who are thinking in other terms about how the U.S. should act in the world. So the national security establishment wants to stick around. The people want out. What's the fundamental issue here that these two sides can't agree on? The issue that people have to come to terms with is under what circumstances should American soldiers fight and die on behalf of security in the Middle East? And what can we say that's just

a level of violence in the Middle East that we can't fix? And we haven't really completely come to terms with a discussion on what we should care about in Syria, should we care about anywhere else, who should we fight to defend, and what should we just let go. And a lot of Americans, my reading is a lot of Americans say, you know what, Syria is something we should just let go. And if more people die, that's one thing. If more Americans died, that's something Americans should care about. But if more Arabs died, then Arabs are dying. And that's up to Arabs to figure out. So the other option is just staying for a very long time.

Well, I would say my argument is that there are going to be negotiations that will determine the future of this country. And we should be angling to improve our leverage in those negotiations. That's not about a completely open-ended military presence, but it's also not about we pull out within 30 days, come hell or high water. So if someone asked you, should we stay or should we go, you would say? We should stay in order to negotiate the terms under which we leave. Thanks again to Quip Electric Toothbrushes for supporting the show today. Over a million people use the Quip, and you can get yourself started at getquip.com slash explain. The Quip starts at $25, but there's lots of options if that's too cheap for you to soup that thing up. The first set of refills.

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