Trump gives green light to Turkey to takeover northern Syria, displace U.S. partners

T. Belman. What the hell!!!

The White House looks at the overall picture in eastern Syria, not as one in which the US fought and sacrificed alongside Kurdish partner forces, but as a simple transactional issue.

“The US has no interests in stability, in preventing Iranian influence, in defending its partners, in preventing ethnic cleansing or destruction of property, or in managing the crisis, it has decided its mission was tailored and narrow and nothing beyond the ISIS issue. This is despite the fact the US has made other statements about stopping Iranian encroachment in Syria and the US has given lip service to things like “religious freedom” and “stabilization.””

BY SETH J. FRANTZMAN, JPOST

A map of Syria shows the various areas under the influence or control of different countries and groups. In northern Syria in Idlib is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Along the Syrian border Turkey and its allies control a corridor stretching to the Euphrates river. In eastern Syria the US, the anti-ISIS coal. (photo credit: JPOST STAFF)

For four years the US and mostly Kurdish fighters in eastern Syria have fought and defeated Islamic State in northeast Syria. On October 6 the White House decided to give the green light to a Turkish invasion of the same area to defeat to displace the partner forces the US had been working with. For more than a year and a half US President Donald Trump has been seeking to leave Syria. In the midst of the impeachment crisis he has now made the decision not to pressure Ankara diplomatically, but to sacrifice other US allies in the war on ISIS.

According to a statement from the White House press secretary Trump spoke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the US says that “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria.” The US will not support the operation and the US claims it has defeated the ISIS “caliphate,” so it is mission accomplished in terms of what the US initially went to Syria to do. This is the logic by which Washington has decided to act in the face of a year of Ankara’s threats to takeover eastern Syria.

The US says it is not responsible for holding ISIS detainees for many years at an expense to US taxpayers. “Turkey will now be responsible for all ISIS fighters in the area captured over the past two years in the wake of the defeat of the territorial ‘caliphate’ by the United States.”  In these brief paragraphs are found the end of almost five years of the US anti-ISIS war in eastern Syria which began with supporting Kurds who were trapped in the city of Kobani, then under siege by ISIS. The US began airstrikes in September 2014 to stop ISIS from taking Kobani. Now, five years later, it appears the US has given Turkey a green light to take over, displace and settle eastern Syria with its own refugees. This comes after Turkey did the same thing in Afrin in 2019 and displaced 160,000 Kurdish people.

The extraordinary reversal of US policy is part of an overall series of changing US policies that have left allies of the US wondering what Washington is doing and left adversaries knowing that pressure works with Washington.