On October 5 President Trump signed to withdraw US Troops from northern Syria in a move that some called permission for the Turkish President to begin the invasion. Days later Turkey launched a ground and air assault against the Syrian militia. Turkish fighter jets bombed Syrian towns, forcing civilians to flee south. Turkish troops crossed the border after roughly six hours of bombing.
The US has allies in both Turkey and in the Kurdish people, which has made Trump’s decision to leave the region even more complicated. Trump tweeted, “We may be in the progress of leaving Syria, but in no way have we abandoned the Kurds, who are special people and wonderful fighters.”
The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East and have been working towards self determination since the end of World War I. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is a group of Kurds who have been fighting for Kurdish autonomy for around three decades. In the mid 1980s, the PKK began a guerilla war against Turkey, citing oppression and persecution.
That struggle and persecution continues today, and some fear that without the US troops, Turkey will obliterate the Kurds.
Kurdish militias assisted the Syrian Democratice Forces (SDF) in regaining territory taken by ISIS. With Turkey viewing the PKK as a terrorist group in Syria, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has voiced concern as the Kurds grew in power.
Erdogan said in a New York Times article that the October 9th operation was intended to “prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border.”
Many people were opposed to Trump’s decision to step aside for the Turkish invasion. Former US diplomat Aaron David Miller said to an AP reporter, “This clearly had immediate, sequential consequence that very few of the other decisions he [President Trump] has made have had.”
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said to the New York Times, “I expect the American president to do what is in our national security interest and it is never in our national security interest to abandon an ally.”
President Trump refuted the claim that he was abandoning the Kurds. He said that the United States has made it clear that Turkey’s invasion is inappropriate. On October 10 he tweeted, “I am trying to end the ENDLESS WARS… I say hit Turkey very hard financially if they don’t play by the rules! I am watching closely.”
Melissa Dalton, director of the Cooperative Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, “There is a very high risk of the Islamic State taking advantage of the SDF and the American and other coalition members being focused on the implications of the Turkish efforts.”
Though Trump claimed that he defeated the Islamic State in Syria this year, defense officials continue to worry about the remains of the terrorist group that are here to stay. If Turkey sparks further violence, Syria’s ability to police the prisons containing thousands of ISIS fighters could be significantly damaged.