Trump's approach towards the Syrian Kurds raised many controversies and started "wow, what does it mean for us" discussions in allied countries based on analogies between them and SDF or YPG. There are some misperceptions that I think demand explanation.
The U.S. since the beginning claimed they eventually wanted to withdraw from Syria and clearly communicated their partnership with the YPG or SDF is temporarily and tactical. Moreover, Trump's decision on Sunday was third attempt to withdraw from Syria. Bearing this in
mind, these talks about "Trump's betrayal of Kurds" seems missed and are just a replication of Kurds' narrative. Let's move on. The U.S. cooperated with the SDF, and its leading component is made of YPG tied to the PKK, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by
the EU, US and Turkey. And here is sth important: this is Turkey who is U.S. treaty ally, not the SDF or YPG. The Americans realized links between the YPG and PKK. Why did they decided to engage with them? Because initially Turkey did't want to support them in a fight with ISIS.
And later was really unsuccessful in this endeavor. What is more, opposition which was supported by Turkey was really dubious and some of them had jihadi connections. Ok, let me remind you that till 2015 there was a peace process between Turkey and the PKK, and a leader of the
PYD, which is a political arm of the YPG, regularly traveled to Turkey. The situation complicated after the end of the peace process and Rojava's strengthening. Turks started to look at it as an existential threat. In their opinion, the U.S. supported an organization which
endangered TR's territorial integrity (here, as an exception, let's leave aside whether the threat was real, because we need Turkey's perception for further conclusions). What could the U.S. do in this situation? I think there were three options: a) leave cooperation with the SDF
to appease Turkey; b) end the alliance with Turkey to support a Kurdish project in Syria; c) make Turkey and Kurds talk again and make a deal. Option c was the most convenient and the U.S. decided to do just this. What made it impossible? Here we have Erdoğan's factor and
his nationalist turn after 2015. Now it seems that the U.S. choose option a, because they were pressured hard by Turkey (I'll get back to this). Why do I think it is important? Because: a) I think that it is good to base analysis on the facts and not on the narratives - be it
Turkish or Kurdish; b) fals analogies lead to false conclusions; c) this is why many experts/analysts have been taken aback by Trump's decision, which was really easy to forsee. And here is where I am back to conclusions for the allies and also to Turk's pressuring Trump. I think
basing conclusions on Trump's approach to the alliances on the fact that he "betrayed Kurds" is wrong. This means we are mixing the cause with the effect. Moreover, treating the Poland or another treaty ally on the equal footing with the SDF or YPG is not only misunderstanding,
but also a false analogy. Of course, all of this does not mean that there are no conclusions to draw from this situation. Yet, IMHO, they are a bit different: 1) Trump is serious about his will to limit the U.S. presence in the world; 2) Trump does not care about values and this
is why we should bind his with interests and in such a way that he would consider this beneficial for him; 3) and here we are back to Turk's pressuring Trump. His goodwill towards Turkey really makes one wonder about its sources. Maybe it really stems, as Trump claims,
from the fact that Turkey is an important ally. Yet, when one takes under consideration news that show Trump tried to torpedo Zarrab case, and that his pro-Turkish initiative very often follow his talks with Erdoğan, then, well, a) we have to think about Trump's conflict of
interests, because of his business in Turkey; b) we have a totally different perspective on the impeachment, which I think looks more likely to succeed with such news. There are surely much more important conclusions for the U.S. position in the world affairs and
for the global order, but please allow me to leave this for specialists on the U.S. and IR theorist.
And maybe a short disclaimer. I don't want to suggest in this thread that we should not criticize Trump or the U.S. On the contrary, I believe that we should definitely draw
And maybe a short disclaimer. I don't want to suggest in this thread that we should not criticize Trump or the U.S. On the contrary, I believe that we should definitely draw
conclusions from all this. I just want to say that we should do this on informed analysis, not based on false analogies. To support this I want to pay your attention to the fact that trying to diminish trust in the U.S. among the allies is a classical tool of Moscow propaganda
(again I am not saying this to stop U.S. criticism, but just to warn that some criticism is justified and some is fueled by Russia to fulfill its political goals). Secondly, this also doesn't mean we should not criticize the West approach towards the Kurds or be sorry for them.
We should be as they literally paid with their blood for our security. And this is also a very sour conclusion for us. We do like to make others pay for our security to later shed crocodile tears, don't we?
