The message from the White House sounded so succinct, as if one did not really have anything to do with the whole thing: "Turkey will soon move forward with its long-planned mission in Turkey," it said in Sunday's statement. The American forces would "neither support nor be involved in this operation" and would no longer be present in the "immediate area" after defeating the "caliphate" of the "Islamic State".
What does that mean in concrete terms? Remains unclear. Probably not even the commanders of the some 1,000 US soldiers in northeastern Syria know it, maybe not even US President Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo, his now third foreign minister. The position of the now fourth National Security Advisor in Trump's Cabinet is still vacant following the sacking of the third incumbent in September.
The USA give Iran a stage win on the silver platter
But one thing is certain: a bankruptcy of American foreign policy. This has three main reasons:
- Since 2014, the US has massively supported the Kurdish-led militia of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with weapons, air support and its own special forces in the fight against IS terrorist militia. Now the SDF were in leadership and structure an offshoot of the former formed in Turkey separatist organization PKK, the new name was just another label. But they fought, for nearly five years, and finally defeated the terrorist caliphate that ruled large parts of eastern Syria in the summer of 2014 in March 2019. Now succinctly leaving these allies to a Turkish invasion will make any political formation more skeptical about the promises of the protector of the free world.
- Syria will not become more peaceful as a result of the invasion of the Turkish army into the Kurdish areas. On the contrary, there will be fierce battles between the mighty and often inexperienced Turkish army and the fighting Kurdish units. Or, more likely, the Kurdish leadership will come to terms with Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad and his ruling power, Russia. Assad's regime can also take the northeast again, but the Russians block the Turkish invasion.
- Trump's move shows that his foreign policy is not only amoral but also completely contradictory. The indirect winners of an American withdrawal from the area-rich and oil-rich northeast of Syria will be Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Assad's most faithful ally and Washington's greatest enemy.
Two years ago, Trump broke the tirelessly negotiated nuclear deal held by Tehran with the intention of turning Iran into a kind of capitulation. A renewed economic embargo, a high-risk military escalation was the result, a crash of the Iranian economy - and now get the Radicals heirs Khomeinis a stage victory served on the silver platter.
For Trump's domestic policy, the rest of the world must serve
The essence of the lapidary sentences from the White House: there is only domestic politics that the rest of the world has to serve. Trump is under pressure:
- The scandal over his attempts to persuade the Ukrainian government to meddle in the US elections has developed unexpected clout.
- He has canceled the announced withdrawal from Afghanistan.
- Remains a withdrawal from Syria, in order to score with his electorate.
No matter what the consequences for Syria, for the allies and not least for the fight against IS. He lost his openly controlled territory. But that this does not mean the end of a terrorist group has been proven by al-Qaida long enough.
US ARMY / EPA-EFE / REX
If they are soon gone, a brutal war threatens: US soldiers in northeastern Syria
Erdogan wants to change the demography of Syria
In addition, the SDF units have massacred the IS members not nationwide, but made prisoners. Many prisoners. About 10,000 men and 80,000 women, old people, children. No one wants, not even the countries of origin of foreign IS fighters like France and Germany. The US does not want them either. Turkey should take care of them. Which she will not do.
What happens in the calmest and, by comparison, Assad's reign, by far the freest territory of Syria, is open. The Turkish army has gathered troops and armored vehicles in Akcakale. Exactly where Turkey maintained good neighborly relations with the ISIS in October 2014 and the border crossing to the IS area remained open, while the Kurdish residents of Kobane led a desperate battle 60 kilometers further west against the advancing IS troops. There, Turkey kept the border hermetically sealed, did not even allow the US to use its air base in Incirlik, Turkey, to aid the Kurds.
That's exactly where Turkish President Tayyib Erdogan wants to invade his army: supposedly to create a dozen kilometers of "security zone" along the entire border. And to enable Syrian refugees to return home.
Adem ALTAN / AFP
Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatens an offensive against the Kurds in Syria
What he will actually do is a battle zone, as Kobans and most Kurdish cities are right on the border. Moreover, most of the Syrians who have fled to Turkey do not come from the north-east of the civil-war country, but from Homs, Aleppo, Damascus, the Arab parts. Deporting them now to the Kurdish areas would be an attempt of demographic change and a guarantee of endless strife.
Perhaps this offensive will come to an end much earlier than Erdogan and his neo-Ottoman strategist dream of it. Maybe US troops are staying in some areas for now. Perhaps it remains in an invasion of Manbij, the majority Arab city west of the Euphrates, which the Kurds have incorporated themselves and Erdogan has been claiming for years.
That sounds strange, but even Erdogan's motives are domestic. He is not concerned with another Syria, but with an enlarged Turkey. At any rate, this can be inferred from the way in which the areas of the northwest that are already dominated by the Turkish military are being treated step by step as Turkish governor provinces.
One thing is certain: that under Trump the US no longer has any interest in a foreign policy that also cares about its consequences.