Did Mr. "I Brought All The Troops Home" Invade Syria Yesterday?

You'd think someone would have mentioned it. Oh, CNN did. Saturday morning a convoy of between a dozen and two dozen military vehicles left northern Iraq and crossed into Syria's Deir Ezzor region to either prevent the recently escaped ISIS prisoners from taking over the Syrian oil fields, or seizing the fields. There seems to be a lot of confusion. NPR Middle East corespondent Greg Myre on the contradictory statements from the Trump Regime: "Some have left, but some are still there. And their mission seems to have changed. They're going to be protecting the oil. But we don't know how many. The president said this week they were coming out. Yesterday he was still putting out these contradictory tweets saying the oil is secured; we're bringing our troops back home. At the same time, his defense secretary Mark Esper was at NATO saying we're looking at repositioning the troops. So we don't quite know what's going to happen here. It really seems to be a signal of policy being made on the fly."

Q: "What about the president's stated goal to bring U.S. troops home, say enough of these endless wars?

Myre: "He keeps saying this, but then it doesn't happen. One of the things we were hearing, some troops would go from Syria to western Iraq, where the U.S. still has troops. A little while ago, we heard there was almost a deal with the Taliban to pull troops out of Afghanistan, and that didn't happen. If you look at the Trump presidency, what you've actually seen is a small but significant increase in U.S. troops in the Middle East and a lot of reshuffling, but no full withdrawals."

Time Magazine reporter Medeleine Carlisle, picked up on the confusion as well. As Trump pulled the troops out of northern Iraq to allow the Turks to slaughter our Kurdish allies and their families, he "has repeatedly insisted that the region’s oil has been 'secured,' even going so far as to suggest the United States is now responsible for the fate of the oil."

“We’ve secured the oil and, therefore, a small number of U.S. troops will remain in the area where they have the oil,” Trump said during an Oct. 23 press conference. “And we’re going to be protecting it, and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.”

Indeed, further complicating an already confusing shift in Washington’s Syria strategy, U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Thursday that an unspecified number of American troops and materiel are being sent to defend oil fields in eastern Syria held by Kurdish forces. They were key U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS, but the American withdrawal opened the door for Turkey, which views the main Kurdish militia in Syria as a threat, to launch an offensive against the group.

From the Kurdish forces to the Syrian government, the oil fields are vital to actors within Syria, experts say. What’s less clear, however, is whether Trump or the U.S. more broadly can determine what happens to the oil, as the President suggested he has the power to do. Moreover, experts say Trump’s focus on the topic fits into a broader pattern of fixating on Middle Eastern oil, which he has often suggested “taking” as compensation for U.S. military activity in the region.

Here’s what to know about Syria’s oil fields, and why President Trump keeps mentioning them.

Why are Syria’s oil fields important?

Before the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Syria produced about 385,000 barrels of oil per day, says Jeff Colgan, a political science professor at Brown University and author of Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War. The majority of that oil came from the fields in the country’s northeast.

As Syria descended into bloodshed, The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, took advantage of the chaos and began to grow in military strength and in territory. Eventually, it took over oil fields, the proceeds from which helped fund the group’s sprawling operations.

Targeting the oil fields helped the U.S. and its allies strip ISIS of its territory. “A big part of the strategy of defeating ISIS was actually to try to disrupt the oil supply chain, to take out tankers carrying oil, or to destroy any kind of refineries, any sort of ISIS oil operations,” says Colgan. ISIS lost control of the oil fields in 2017 amid fighting with the Kurdish-lead, American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. “The net result was Kurdish forces and U.S. forces helped occupy the territory where the oil fields are,” says Colgan.

Late in the fighting, ISIS forces destroyed much of the oil infrastructure. But Kurdish forces have since been able to repair some of the damage, says Dareen Khalifa, the senior Syria analyst for International Crisis Group, another think tank. Revenue from the fields has helped support the Kurdish forces in the area, who use the money to pay fighters and civil servants.

Why is the U.S. keeping troops in Syria to defend the oil fields?

After the White House’s Oct. 6 announcement that American troops were being withdrawn from Syria’s border with Turkey ahead of a planned Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces, critics on both sides of the aisle accused Trump of abandoning Washington’s Kurdish allies. In a statement, the SDF called the U.S. withdrawal a “stab in the back;” locals reportedly pelted American vehicles with rotten fruit and potatoes as they left. Others say the move destabilized the region more broadly, in part by triggering a humanitarian crisis that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

Trump has repeatedly defended the decision to leave the Syrian border, saying the Kurdish forces are “no angels,” arguing that “it’s not our border,” and describing the conflict as “like two kids in a lot, you’ve got to let them fight, and then you pull them apart.” The President caused further confusion Thursday when he tweeted that “perhaps it is time for the Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region;” what he meant by that was unclear. Meanwhile, Turkey’s offensive against Kurdish forces continues despite an American-crafted ceasefire. And Russia, Washington’s longtime geopolitical foe, has sent troops to the region, in part filling the power vacuum left by the American absence.

Some say the American pullout could result in the reemergence of ISIS, which has lost all of its territory in the region. Before October, thousands of suspected ISIS fighters were being held in Kurdish-run prisons in Syria. But with the Kurdish forces now pivoting to defend themselves from Turkey, they have fewer resources with which to mind the prisons. The White House has insisted the prisoners are now Turkey’s responsibility, but the chaos has given many the chance to flee, as hundreds of detainees have reportedly done.

If and when ISIS regroups, it may target the oil fields that proved so lucrative in the past. During this week’s press conference, Defense Secretary Esper said U.S. troops are defending Syria’s oil fields in order to keep ISIS from regaining control of them. “If ISIS has access to the resources, and therefore the means to procure arms or to buy fighters or whatever else they do, then it means it makes it more difficult to defeat ISIS,” he said.

Leaving some troops behind to help defend the oil fields while pulling others out elsewhere could be Trump’s way to try to achieve his isolationist goals while avoiding an ISIS renaissance, experts say.

“The President is very keen to pull, or at least have the appearance of, pulling back military troops from the Middle East,” says Cogan. “But at the same time that exposes him to the criticism that this could … lay the grounds for ISIS to reconstitute itself. And the oil fields would be a key part of that, so understandably he’s focused on preventing that possibility.”

Could ISIS regain control of the oil fields?

“Probably not in the very short term, but yes,” says Cogan. “Having done it once already, I think ISIS had proved that this is a possibility.” Khalifa, the International Crisis Group analyst, says that she doesn’t believe ISIS has a chance of retaking the fields, but she believes it could attack them. Ibrahim Al-Assil, a scholar at the non-partisan think tank The Middle East Institute, says ISIS lacks the military capability to retake the fields, but says it might have the strength to do so in the future.

Al-Assil also argues that Washington is likely concerned about other actors who might take control of the fields absent an American presence. “I think it’s part of the maximum pressure campaign the Trump administration has on Iran, Syria, and their allies in the region,” he says.

The oil fields could be a particularly tempting target for the Syrian government forces, controlled by Bashar al-Assad. The Assad regime is under tight economic sanctions, making it difficult for Damascus to acquire oil. And with winter quickly approaching, demand for oil will only increase.

“The U.S. administration doesn’t want the [Assad] regime to benefit from the withdrawal and be able to alleviate the economic pressure it’s going through by re-controlling the oil fields,” says Al-Assil. He adds that there’s a chance that the Kurdish forces in the area and the Assad regime, who formed an alliance of convenience to work together against Turkey after the American withdrawal, could strike a deal to return the oil fields to government control.

Why is President Trump so focused on Middle Eastern oil?

Trump’s repeated statements about Syria’s oil over the past few weeks fits into his larger pattern of focusing on Middle Eastern countries’ oil supply. He has, for example, repeatedly lamented that Washington did not “take” oil from Iraq amid its war there. “I still can’t believe we left Iraq without the oil,” he tweeted in 2013. “I always said, ‘take the oil,'” he told Matt Lauer in 2016. And Trump fiercely responded to attacks on Saudi Arabian oil production earlier this year, deploying around 14,000 more troops to the Persian Gulf in the aftermath.

It’s unclear how the United States could legally “take” oil belonging to Iraq or any other sovereign nation. But Cogan describes Trump as having a “fixation” on U.S. oil interests in the region regardless. “[He has] a kind of transactional understanding of the relationship between the United States and various players in the Middle East where oil is the payment for U.S. military protection,” Cogan says.

Dana Stroul, a fellow at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy, adds that American officials may be pushing Trump to keep some troops in Syria to fight ISIS and to act as a counterbalance to Russia’s presence there, and “have settled on this notion of protecting this oil as an argument that would be compelling” to the President, given his fixation on the issue.

Foreign Correspondent: Trump Blows it Big Time in Syria-- Trump Dumps Kurds As The Empire Crumbles

Photo Op in Ankara

-by Reese Erlich

In less than two weeks, President Donald Trump has managed to create a massive and avoidable crisis in Syria.

By greenlighting the Turkish invasion of northern Syria, Trump’s policy forced more than 160,000 Syrians to flee their homes. And guess who emerged as the political and military winners? Russia, Iran, and the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.

High-ranking Republicans, including usual Trump defenders Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, slammed the decision. A bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives, including two-thirds of Republicans, also condemned the move. Chaos on the battlefield and recriminations at home: This is what a declining empire looks like.

The move is also being criticized by John Craig, special assistant to the President under George W. Bush, who told me in an interview that there was a clear alternative to Trump’s reckless moves. Instead of abandoning the Kurds, he could have clearly warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan not to invade.

“I would have advised President don’t give an inch,” Craig says in a phone interview. “Tell Erdoğan ‘don't move across the border.’”

Instead, Trump bumbled his way into an international crisis.

The fateful phone call

It began October 6 with a phone call between Trump and Erdoğan. Turkey’s president convinced Trump to pull back U.S. troops based in northern Syria so Turkey could launch an invasion. Once again, The Donald, trusting his “gut,” made a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Three days later, Erdoğan sent troops across the border to attack the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the mostly Kurdish group that had allied with Washington to fight the Islamic State. Outgunned by the Turkish army and abandoned by Trump, the SDF made a quickie deal with the Syrian and Russian governments to jointly block the Turkish offensive.

Syrian army troops quickly deployed to several important cities near the border with Turkey. Russian military police began patrolling the strategically located town of Manbij. Turkey’s proxy militia will fight for control of Manbij, Erdoğan says, but it’s unclear if it will risk a clash with Syria or Russia.

On October 17, Vice President Mike Pence and Erdoğan announced a five-day “ceasefire,” during which Kurdish forces would withdraw from an area designated by Turkey. But the Kurds were not part of the negotiations, and as of press time, it seems unlikely they will pull back their fighters.

What could have been done?

It doesn’t take an advanced degree or years in the State Department to see an alternative to Trump’s dump on the Kurds. Trump could have set a date for a US withdrawal with clear warnings to Turkey. The U.S. would have had overwhelming support in the United Nations, which has the power to impose harsh diplomatic and economic sanctions on Turkey. A genuine multi-national effort would have deterred aggression or made Turkey pay a very high cost.

Instead, Trump allowed the invasion, then reversed course by imposing sanctions after the fact. He raised tariffs on Turkish steel imports, halted negotiations on a $100 billion trade deal, and cut several Turkish government ministers off from global banking. None of these measures came close to the US sanctions imposed on Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran-- nor were they likely to have any serious impact on the war.

And then, after announcing the ceasefire, Trump dropped the sanctions altogether.

Unfortunately, some leading Democrats are using the crisis to attack Trump from the right. Democratic hawks Chuck Schumer of New York, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, and Jack Reed of Rhode Island want Trump to return U.S. troops to Syria.

That would be a colossal blunder. In principle, Washington should not launch yet another unilateral invasion. In practical terms, there’s still a war going on in northern Syria, and the US has no allies left.

“It would expose U.S. troops to fire from all sides,” Craig says. “Syrian Kurds, Russians, and Turks are angry. What would the US troops do?”

Could craziness lead to peace?

The newly minted alliance of SDF, Russia, and the Syrian government opens up the possibility of reunifying Syria and helping expel foreign troops. But implementation won’t be easy because of serious political differences.

For the past several years, under US military protection, the SDF has implemented its version of autonomy in northern Syria. It created local councils with women making up half the leadership. Christians, Arabs, and other ethnic/religious groups were guaranteed representation.

The SDF is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey, which, contrary to mainstream media reports, gave up Marxism more than twenty years ago and adopted a hodgepodge version of anarchism that stresses feminism and environmentalism. However, the PKK continues to exclude participation by other political parties to its left or right. And it promotes a cult of personality around PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The U.S. and Turkey falsely label the PKK a terrorist organization. The PKK engages in armed struggle, but doesn’t massacre civilians like IS or Al Qaeda.

President Assad, on the other hand, favors a highly centralized state. While he allows presidential and parliamentary elections, real power resides with the president, military, and ruling Baath Party. Syria’s leaders fear that granting autonomy to Kurds will be the first step in the creation of an independent Kurdistan in northern Syria.

Political settlement?

Previous efforts by the SDF and Assad to reach a political settlement have failed. In August 2018, the SDF and government held talks and even formed a committee to continue negotiations. But the talks broke down, largely over disagreements on autonomy.

In the last two weeks, faced with the prospects of a permanent Turkish occupation of northern Syria, both sides agreed to cooperate. The SDF/government agreement hasn’t been made public. But there have been leaks.

Danny Makki, a pro-government analyst and blogger, writes that the SDF-affiliated soldiers have agreed to join the Syrian Army's 5th Corps, a contingent of foreign volunteers trained by Russia. Both sides have agreed to remove Turkish forces from northern Syria. And, most controversially, Makki writes, both sides agreed to “full Kurdish rights in the new Syrian constitution with autonomy, which will be agreed upon by Kurdish leadership & Syrian state.”

But another source in Damascus, who requests anonymity because the government hasn’t announced its position, doubts the Syrian authorities agreed to any kind of autonomy. “The SDF wants self administration, and it’s not acceptable,” the source tells me by phone. “Syria can’t accept a state within the state.”

I suspect that all sides agreed to cooperate without even starting to resolve political differences. Every side gets something in the short run.

After a seven-year absence, Assad will send his army back into much of northern Syria. The SDF hopes this will deter further Turkish attacks, while the SDF continues its civilian administration. And the Russians will appear as peace makers among the various armed groups.

They say politics makes strange bedfellows. So does war.

Putin Is Eager To See U.S. Nukes Removed From Turkey

The Axios headline was both disturbing and likely inaccurate: Pelosi and Graham team up to oppose Trump's Syria decision. There's a whiff of an implication that they're trying to somehow change Trump's decision. As unlikely as it is, Trump's the commander-in-chief, as well as an ignorant moron. And as Pelosi knows-- even if Graham doesn't-- there is no way for Congress to overrule his decision. In this matter, he's in charge; they're not. Pelosi is already working on making sure there's a new commander-in-chief as soon as possible. Graham's working just as hard to make sure Trump is the commander-in-chief for another 5 years and a month.

Politico reported that bipartisan efforts will be used "to overturn President Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops." That will never happen; it's as insane as Trump is. What they're actually doing that makes sense is preparing harsh sanctions against Erdoğan's government, which might be effective-- and might be the only alternative to doing nothing-- although a sanctions regime carries some very serious risks as well.

Under normal circumstances-- with a normal president and State Department, regardless of party-- something like this would have been handled diplomatically, not as part of a childish twitter rampage aimed at reelection. Pelosi on her conversion with Graham: "Our first order of business was to agree that we must have a bipartisan, bicameral joint resolution to overturn the President’s dangerous decision in Syria immediately," whatever that means. "Next, we must put together the strongest bipartisan, bicameral sanctions package similar to the bipartisan bill the House is advancing. As we find ourselves in a situation where the President gave a green light to the Turks to bomb and effectively unleashed ISIS, we must have a stronger sanctions package than what the White House is suggesting."

Graham spoke about the conversation as well: "Speaker [Pelosi] supports bipartisan sanctions against Turkey’s outrages in Syria. She also believes we should show support for Kurdish allies and is concerned about the reemergence of ISIS. I will be working across party lines in a bicameral fashion to draft sanctions and move quickly, appreciating President Trump’s willingness to work with the Congress. The Speaker indicated to me that time was of the essence."

Erdoğan's government has claimed from the start that Trump knew exactly what Turkey was planning, when he gave them the thumbs up to invade the Kurdish enclave in Northern Syria. How did Trump know? Erdogan sought his assistance, which he provided-- withdrawing U.S. troops from the area and leaving the our Kurdish allies and their families to Erdoğan's tender mercies.

The U.S. has a major airbase in Adana in southern Turkey, Incirlik, and Russia has been wanting to see the 50 U.S. nuclear weapons out of there; that has a lot to do with why Putin has stirred up trouble between Erdoğan and the easily manipulated Trump. The last time the U.S. put sanctions on Turkey was in 1978 when Turkey invaded Cyprus. The Turks came close to shutting down Incirlik then but decided to just suspend all operations instead. The EU has already imposed an arms embargo against Turkey and Trump will do that even without a congressional resolution, which is likely to be much stronger than what Trump wants. Removing those nuclear weapons is being actively discussed in the Pentagon.

Erdoğan has threatened to send millions of refugees into Europe as retaliation. He was in Baku yesterday-- not staying at the dilapidated Trump Tower there-- and he told the media that he will react forcefully to NATO attempts to isolate Turkey. "We are determined to take our operation to the end. We will finish what we started,” he said. “A hoisted flag does not come down. Erdoğan is a dick-- like Trump-- but Turkey is a strong American ally. Someone should be treading carefully.

The nuclear weapons are now Erdoğan's hostages. This is exactly the kind of situation where having a hothead and impetuous know-it-all sitting in the Oval Office poses dangers for the U.S. and the rest of the world. Jim Himes (D-CT) is a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee and chair of its Subcommittee on Strategic Technologies. Earlier today he told me that "Trump has fatally abandoned our only real ally in the region, the Kurds, stirred the ISIS hornets’ nest and given Russia, Assad and Iran a free hand. For which he got what?"

Ted Lieu (D-CA) is usually thought of as one of the most brilliant minds on the House Judiciary Committee. OK-- but he's also one of the most valuable members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. This evening he reminded us that "The Kurdish people have been one of America's staunchest allies for decades. In 1996 I participated in Operation PACIFIC HAVEN, where the DoD airlifted Kurds out of Iraq and into Guam. We did this because the Kurds helped the United States fight Saddam Hussein and we had a duty to protect them from violent retaliation. More recently the Kurds helped the United States fight ISIS. Our strategy to contain and retake territory from ISIS in Syria was successful primarily due to the sacrifices of thousands of Kurdish fighters on the ground. Anyone who has heard me speak about foreign policy knows that I believe we should not be engaged in endless war around the globe. As a veteran, I am in favor of bringing our troops home. But we must end these engagements in a smart and strategic way that honors our commitments and protects our men and women in uniform. Trump's reckless decision to abandon our allies has destabilized the entire region. It has pushed the Kurds into an unholy alliance with Assad and Putin, allowed hundreds of ISIS affiliates to escape from Kurdish-run prisons, put our troops in harms way, and endangered our national security."

 Andy Levin (D-MI) is an influential member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of its Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and Nonproliferation. He's also deputy whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. This morning, in a note about Trump, he told me that "truly, on top of all of his impeachable offenses, we have never confronted a president as uncoachable, as unstable, as ignorant and as insecure-arrogant as Trump in modern times. His ability to make a complete disaster of foreign policy on a whim while on the phone with a foreign strongman (pant, pant, pant) has darn nearly accomplished the impossible-- uniting Congressional Democrats and Republicans."

Tom Suozzi (D-NY), the sharpest member of Congress from Long Island, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, told me today that "There are all kinds of theories about what game the President is playing-- helping Erdogan, helping Putin, business gain, ignorance, naivite, total lack of judgement, or more likely, trying to change the front pages to help his re election. The bottom line, however, is this is not a game. This is serious business. It is life and death. ISIS. World balance of power. War. People’s existence. Just like healthcare, immigration, gun violence prevention, climate change and so much more are serious life and death issues for real people. Freedom and democracy are serious business. This is no time for game playing. Times up."

A Putin puppet, Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, leader of Russian nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, proclaimed just before the U.S. election that if Trump won, Russia would "drink champagne in anticipation of being able to advance its positions on Syria and Ukraine."

The Kurds-- Betrayed Again, This Time By The World's Most Dishonorable Figure

Hole-in-One by Nancy Ohanian

There are between 30 and 40 million Kurds in the world but their homeland stretches across northwest Iran, northern Iraq, northern Syria and southeast Turkey. They are the world's largest ethnic group without a state. The end of World War I and the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire brought with it the establishment of their own states, the Republic of Ararat in Turkey, the Kingdom of Kurdistan in Iraq and the Republic of Mahabad in Iran, together the core of a hoped for Kurdistan. Both republics and the kingdom were suppressed and short lived.

The U.S. has manipulated the Kurds with promises of a homeland in return for fighting in Americans wars in Iraq and Syria. U.S. administrations have always abandoned the Kurds after they were no longer needed. No one has done this more cruelly and blatantly than Trump is doing. (It's worth noting that although German has taken in over a million and a half Kurds, France 150,000, Sweden over 80,000, Holland 70,000, Belgium and the U.K. 50,000 each and tiny Denmark 30,000, the U.S. has only given refuge to 20,591 Kurds.)

Finally a sitting Republican congressman with the guts to break with Trump-- except he's retiring, so not running for reelection. Staunch conservative John Shimkus (R-IL) didn't say he would vote for impeachment but did say on a local radio station that he told his staff "to take my name off the I support Donald Trump list" and that he's "saddened for the Kurdish people."

Yesterday the New York Times reported that Pentagon officials are losing their minds over the latest betrayal, after "more than five years of fighting alongside Kurdish troops in Iraq and Syria has now given way to standing aside as those same allies are attacked." Some reports from inside the officer corps say there is "more anger than they had seen at any point" since Señor Trumpanzee managed to come to power.

2 authoritarian pieces of shit

On op-ed by Air Force Major Jason Baker in USA Today, I fought alongside the Kurds. The United States can't abandon our fierce allies to Turkey illustrates the problem. "As a major in the Air Force who has flown combat missions against the Islamic State," he wrote, "I have seen firsthand the capability of Kurdish fighters. During my missions in 2016, they made up a critical mass of the ground forces flushing ISIS from its strongholds across Iraq and Syria. Together with a small number of U.S. special operators and others making up the moderate Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurds were instrumental in ending the Islamic State’s territorial caliphate. Now is no time to abandon them to the designs of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has just launched a military offensive into Kurdish-controlled parts of Syria... [T]he president did not object to an attack that Turkey launched Wednesday against Kurdish forces in the area-- the same forces that were so critical in liberating large swathes of Iraq and Syria from ISIS control."

The administration's overnight announcement drew an immediate and almost universal rebuke from the foreign policy and military community, even including condemnation from some of the president’s closest usual allies. In the fight against ISIS, it has been U.S. policy to back the Kurds in Syria, and their extremely capable fighters. This week’s decision to turn this policy on its head now puts an extremely valuable partner in jeopardy, risks creating space for the reemergence of the Islamic State, and leaves the status of thousands of captured ISIS fighters uncertain.

America has a long-standing relationship with the Kurdish people, despite a history of overpromising, underdelivering, and often supporting the Kurds when it was helpful and convenient and ignoring them when it was not. After the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, President Woodrow Wilson supported the idea of an independent Kurdish state, but this dream fell apart when Turkish borders were redrawn in 1923. Denied a homeland of their own, the Kurdish diaspora came to be spread across Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, facing pressure and often outright hostility in countries that viewed them with suspicion.

The United States supported Kurdish factions in an attempt to overthrow Iraq’s government in the 1970s  but abruptly broke off relations in the 1980s, creating an opening for Saddam Hussein’s brutal repression. In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, the United States imposed "no-fly" zones that prevented further aggression against the Kurds by Hussein, and President Bill Clinton's administration later helped bring an end to the Iraqi Kurdish civil war. The Kurds in Iraq supported the U.S. invasion of 2003, and were quite possibly the most effective allied fighting force on the ground in the battle against ISIS.

They did all this with the hope-- despite past disappointments-- that America would repay the Kurds by continuing to support Kurdish ambitions in the region. Tragically, they’ve been let down once again, causing many to fear for a humanitarian disaster. With an effective green light from the United States, Erdogan feels empowered to take military actions to sweep the Kurds from territory near the Turkey-Syria border. The repercussions for America and its allies could be huge.

The moral failure of the decision would be bad enough were it not for the strategic implications as well: An invasion by Turkey could roll back allied successes and provide ISIS with space to operate. Kurdish-run camps for detained ISIS fighters-- like the one at Al Hol-- will be in fresh jeopardy, as the Kurds are forced to divert manpower and resources to engaging with the Turks. As a result, not only will ISIS recruiters have an easier time infiltrating their message but also an easier time exfiltrating their new recruits.

This is no way to treat a longtime ally and strategic partner. The Kurds have proved time and again their capability as a disciplined, effective fighting force and their commitment to the kind of stable, moderate governance that is sorely lacking in the region.

Previous U.S. presidents have recognized this and committed themselves to standing side by side with the Kurds. The administration’s plan of abandoning them now would not just be a reversal of long-established policy, it also would be a betrayal of one of America's few reliable regional partners.

On MSNBC, Tom Donilon, Obama's national security adviser, told Andrea Mitchell that "We have given a green light to the Turks to come and fight our allies… It's a real stain on the reputation of the United States." Even Bernie, the peace candidate in the 2020 election, was horrified by how Trump betrayed the Kurds. "The President of the United States should not make significant national security decisions impulsively, by tweets after a single phone call. I strongly condemn Trump's reckless decision to abandon our Kurdish allies to their fate at the hands of Turkish President Erodogan. This is not a case of sending American troops there. They are already there and Trump is withdrawing them, giving the Turkish Army permission to invade. Kurdish fighters have fought and died in our joint effort to eliminate ISIS. They should not be abandoned in this way. Congress must assert its important responsibility over foreign policy and serve as a check on our unstable president." Many Republicans agree with Bernie on this. 

As Turkish planes pounded Kurdish positions from the air and with artillery, CNN reporters on the ground in Syria reported smoke billowing from several large explosions as desperate civilians -- women, children and men-- fled the area on foot, some pushing others in wheelchairs, many crammed into the back of pickup trucks.

With humanitarian groups reporting the bombardment could displace as many as 300,000 people, Erdogan's top adviser told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that Trump knew in advance about the scope of the Turkish attack.

"President Trump and President Erdogan have reached an understanding over precisely what this operation is," Gulnur Aybet said from Ankara on Wednesday. "He knows what the scope of this operation is."

The news trickling out of Syria fed increasing Republican anger, as lawmakers, former officials and analysts reacted throughout the day, and the US military stayed conspicuously silent.

"News from Syria is sickening," Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking Republican in the House, tweeted Wednesday, echoing lawmakers across the spectrum. "Turkish troops preparing to invade Syria from the north, Russian-backed forces from the south, ISIS fighters attacking Raqqa. Impossible to understand why @realDonaldTrump is leaving America's allies to be slaughtered and enabling the return of ISIS."

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio noted that "at request of this administration the Kurds served as the primary ground fighters against ISIS in Syria so U.S. troops wouldn't have to." Then, he charged, the administration "cut deal with Erdogan allowing him to wipe them out. Damage to our reputation & national interest will be extraordinary & long lasting."

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland on Wednesday announced a framework to place immediate sanctions on senior Turkish government officials, ban all US military business and military transactions with Turkey, and immediately activate 2017 sanctions on the country until Ankara stops its operations against the Kurds.

"This unlawful and unwarranted attack against an American friend and partner threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions of civilians, many of whom have already fled from their homes elsewhere in Syria to find safety in this region," Graham and Van Hollen said in a statement.

"This invasion will ensure the resurgence of ISIS in Syria, embolden America's enemies including Al Qaeda, Iran, and Russia, and launch yet another endless conflict in what had been, until today, one of the most safe and stable areas of Syria and a region experimenting with the best model of local governance currently available in that war-torn country."

Brad Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies-- a veteran with 15 years active duty service-- reflected the sentiment of many other Republicans CNN spoke with, describing the day as "a sickening and shameful moment in US history and I put that at the foot of the President."

Both Pentagon and State Department officials had advised Trump against making the move, arguing a US presence is needed to counter ISIS and keep Iran and Russia, both influential inside Syria, in check.

Syrian Democratic Forces said in a statement Wednesday that they were suspending military operations against ISIS in northern Syria following the "Turkish aggression."

On Sunday, after Trump's phone call with Erdogan, the White House said US troops would move out the way and would not support or be involved in the operation. Trump downplayed Turkey's move in comments to reporters at the White House Wednesday.

He shrugged off the likely escape of ISIS fighters from Kurdish prisons, essentially saying it is Europe's problem, not his. "Well, they're going to be escaping to Europe, that's where they want to go," Trump said. He added that "we have no soldiers in the area."

Trump downplayed the alliance with the Kurds, 11,000 of whom died fighting to help the US mission against ISIS. "They didn't help us in the second World War, they didn't help us with Normandy for example," Trump said. "They're there to help us with their land, and that's a different thing." Normandy is an area of France, not the US.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that it was "false" that the US withdrawal of troops from northeastern Syria was a green light for the slaughter of the Kurds, but did not explicitly endorse them as US allies.

Analysts such as Bowman say part of the outrage is driven by the fact that "we would have not defeated ISIS' Caliphate... without their help" and that the Kurds had just recently lowered their defenses, trusting the US to protect them from Turkey.

Since August, the US has been pushing the Kurds to dismantle their defensive fortifications and pull back their troops along the border that Turkey is now attacking as part of a "security mechanism" framework. The goal was to appease Turkey enough so they wouldn't invade. Kurds agreed to participate "presumably because they trusted the US to restrain the Turks diplomatically," Bowman said.

"We are breaking faith with the Kurds," Bowman said. "The SDF did everything we asked them to do. This will have ramifications for every individual soldier, every squad, every platoon operating in a dangerous place trying to earn the trust of their partners."

Earlier Wednesday, Trump took angrily to Twitter to push back on criticism. The President appeared to reference the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was premised on faulty and manipulated intelligence that former leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

"There were NONE!" Trump tweeted. "Now we are slowly & carefully bringing our great soldiers & military home. Our focus is on the BIG PICTURE!"

But analysts and lawmakers of all stripes argue that the big picture and benefits to the US of standing its ground are exactly what Trump is missing. They pointed to the ramifications for future US alliances and the fight against ISIS, which remains a threat, among other issues.

They said the move was strategically shortsighted in Syria and internationally, that it will lend credibility to the narrative-- often pushed by Iran and Russia-- that the US is an unreliable partner making it harder to build future coalitions. That could mean that the US may have to send its own forces into harm's way more often.

"People will come to see the United States as untrustworthy or transactional," Bowman said. "The net result is that the next time we need friends allies partners, they won't be there."

Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah pointed to the sense that once Trump pulled the US back, the Turkish attack was inevitable.

"Reports indicate Turkey is predictably attacking the Kurdish allies we abandoned," Romney tweeted. "It's a tragic loss of life among friends shamefully betrayed. We can only hope the President's decision does not lead to even greater loss of life and a resurgence of ISIS."

The wave of criticism-- including from a usually acquiescent Republican Party and in particular from some staunch Trump allies-- seemed to sting the President into damage control mode. On Wednesday afternoon, he released a statement that did not mention his role in giving Erdogan the green light or the fate of the Kurdish fighters.

"From the first day I entered the political arena, I made it clear that I did not want to fight these endless, senseless wars-- especially those that don't benefit the United States," Trump said.

Trump said Turkey had "committed to protecting civilians, protecting religious minorities" and "ensuring no humanitarian crisis takes place," and said Ankara "is now responsible for ensuring all ISIS fighters being held captive remain in prison and that ISIS does not reconstitute in any way, shape, or form."

Graham, usually a stalwart Trump ally, is predicting his sanctions legislation on Turkey will have a veto-proof majority in the Senate, making it impossible for Trump to stop.

Trump responded to talk of the bipartisan legislation saying "Lindsey and I feel differently."

"I think Lindsey would like to stay there for the next 200 years and maybe add a couple a hundred thousand people every place. But I disagree with Lindsey on that. But I will tell you that I do agree on sanctions."

Trump claimed he has stopped Erdogan from moving into Syria "from virtually the first day" he was in office. "They wanted to fight, and that's the way it is," Trump said.

Turkish garbage meets American garbage; bonds

Aside from the dishonor of abandoning the Kurds to Erdogan's genocidal instincts, the Pentagon is also worried about what will happen with the 12,000 ISIS fighters-- the world's largest concentration of terrorists-- being guarded by the Kurdish army. "If those fighters are set free," reported NBC News, "officials fear a replay of what happened in Iraq between 2010 and 2013, when the core group who founded ISIS were released or escaped from detention after U.S. forces left the country. Some of the very people who broke out of Iraqi prisons helped turn ISIS into a movement that not only seized territory in Iraq and Syria, but also orchestrated and encouraged terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States. Asked what would happen if ISIS fighters escape and pose a threat elsewhere, Trump told reporters Wednesday, 'Well they are going to be escaping to Europe, that's where they want to go. They want to go back to their homes.'"

More broadly, current and former officials say, a large Turkish military incursion into northern Syria will have the effect of removing the single greatest source of counterterrorism pressure against ISIS-- a Kurdish force that has been crucial to defeating and containing the terror group.

...Asked about the risks, U.S. intelligence officials chose their words carefully Wednesday, not wanting to say anything publicly that appears to criticize Trump's policies. But they did not dispute what one of the top counterterrorism officials in the government told NBC News last month-- that ISIS remains a dangerous threat, and that reduction of counterterrorism pressure on the group would "set the conditions for potential reemergence in a very powerful way."

"They are absolutely still a viable external operational threat globally," the official, who chose not to be identified, said.

Just days before Trump ordered U.S. troops to withdraw from the border region of northern Syria, a bipartisan team appointed by Congress, the Syria Study Group, issued a report warning that an American pullout would take the pressure off the terrorists.

"There's ample evidence ISIS is still very much active, it has access to tremendous resources, its brand still has international appeal," said Dana Stroul, co-author of the Syria Study Group report and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank.

"We know that ISIS is looking for opportunities to reconstitute and certainly the lifting of pressure on ISIS is likely to provide the organization with that opportunity."

The report said that ISIS had lost its grip on territory in Syria and Iraq but had "morphed into an insurgency with the will, capability, and resources to carry out attacks against the United States."

Apart from ISIS, al Qaeda-linked groups and other extremists are active in Syria, taking advantage of the chaos of the country's civil war, according to the report.

"Areas of Syria have become safe havens for al Qaeda and its fellow travelers and home to the largest concentration of foreign terrorist fighters since Afghanistan in the 1990s," the report said.

Trump Just Ordered All U.S. Troops Out Of Syria (Again)-- Lindsey Graham Has A Breakdown... Is This Withdrawal Good Or Bad Or Just Too Complicated For Trump To Be Involved With?

Having served their purpose, the Kurds are being fucked-over by the U.S. once again. Lindsey Graham knows how to reach Trump when he doesn't pick up his phone-- you just call in to Fox & Friends instead (above). And there's always the ole tweet machine:

On Saturday, Reese Erlich, currently reporting from Turkey, explained what Turkey is up to in Northern Syria. Maybe Lindsey should have paid attention so Trump's decision wouldn't have surprised him as much. Turkey has its own agenda there and isn't following ours-- which is exactly what, anyway?

This morning Trump ordered U.S. forces to start withdrawing from the Turkish-Syrian border region, which is what caused Graham's flip out. The Washington Post called it "the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration was washing its hands of an explosive situation between the Turkish military and U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters... Trump, in a series of Twitter messages Monday, suggested that the United States was shouldering too much of the burden-- and the cost-- of fighting the Islamic State. He rebuked European nations for not repatriating citizens who had joined the extremist group, claiming that the United States was being played for a 'sucker.' And he chided his own Kurdish allies, who he said were 'paid massive amounts of money and equipment' to fight the militants."

The withdrawal followed a late Sunday statement by the White House that the United States would not intervene in a long-threatened Turkish offensive into northern Syria. The announcement, which signaled an abrupt end to a months-long American effort to broker peace between two important allies, came after a call between Trump and Turkish President Recap Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan said in a speech Monday that the withdrawal began soon after their phone call.

A U.S. official confirmed to the Washington Post that American troops left observation posts in the border villages of Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn at 6:30 a.m. local time.

The fast-moving developments threatened a fresh military conflagration in a large swath of northern Syria, stretching from east of the Euphrates River to the border with Iraq. Syrian Kurds had established an autonomous zone in the area during more than eight years of Syria’s civil war.

Ankara, however, has been increasingly unnerved by the Kurdish presence, and by the close ties between U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a militant group that has fought a long insurgency against the Turkish state.

For months, Erdogan has been threatening an imminent invasion, as Trump administration officials attempted to work out an accommodation that would satisfy Turkish demands for border security while providing a measure of protection for the U.S.-allied Syrian-Kurdish force.

But on Sunday, the United States appeared to throw up its hands. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the Turkish leader would “soon be moving forward” with dispatching troops to battle the Kurdish forces, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. Ankara views the group as a terrorist-linked entity, but the SDF has fought closely alongside the U.S. military as a primary partner against the Islamic State.

“The United States armed forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial ‘caliphate,’ will no longer be in the immediate area,” Grisham said in a statement. ISIS is another name for the Islamic State, the militant group whose rise drew the U.S. military into Syria.

The SDF, in a statement critical of the United States, said the American troops have begun pulling out.

“The United States forces have not fulfilled their obligations and withdrew their forces from the border area with Turkey,” the statement said. “This Turkish military operation in north and east Syria will have a big negative impact on our war against Daesh and will destroy all stability that was reached in the last few years.” Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.

It added that the group reserves the right to defend itself against Turkish aggression.

Erdogan, who has portrayed a Turkish incursion as necessary to protect his country’s borders, has spoken in recent weeks of resettling millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey in a “safe zone” in northern Syria, a plan that has been criticized by refugee advocates as well as local Syrian Kurds who could be displaced by such a proposal.

On Saturday, Erdogan said the invasion, dubbed Operation Peace Fountain, could begin “as soon as today or maybe tomorrow.”

U.S. officials depicted the impending offensive, and the U.S. troop withdrawal, as a dramatic turn after their prolonged attempt to hammer out an arrangement that would allay the Turks’ concerns about Syrian Kurdish forces close to their border, while also averting a battle they fear will be bloody for Kurdish fighters whom the Pentagon sees as stalwart allies.

Military officials point out that Kurdish assistance is still required to avoid a return of the Islamic State in Syria and to guard facilities where Islamic State militants and their families are being held.

A senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an evolving situation, said the U.S. government “has no idea” what the Turkish operation would look like, whether it would be a small, symbolic incursion or a major offensive intended to push as far as 25 miles into Syria.

U.S. officials said an operation deep into Syria could further jeopardize the security of prisons holding Islamic State fighters. “There are many potential disastrous outcomes to this,” the official said.

The White House announcement comes only two days after the Pentagon completed its most recent joint patrol with Turkish forces, a central element of the U.S. effort to build trust in northern Syria. But similar patrols and other measures overseen from a joint U.S.-Turkish military hub in southern Turkey have not reduced Ankara’s impatience to establish the buffer zone it has envisioned.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper described ongoing U.S.-Turkish cooperation in northern Syria, saying that his Turkish counterpart had agreed in a call last week “that we need to make the security mechanism work.”

In negotiations, the United States had said it would agree to a strip along the border to be cleared of Syrian Kurdish fighters and jointly patrolled by the United States and Turkey on the ground and in the air. That strip is about five miles wide, only about a quarter of what the Turks have demanded.

The joint patrols are taking place in only about a third of the border length, with the idea of gradually expanding them. In addition to not liking U.S. terms for the agreement, Erdogan believes the United States is dragging its feet in implementing it.

“Mr. Trump gave the order; he ordered to pull out. But this came late,” Erdogan told reporters in Ankara on Monday. “We cannot accept the threats of terrorist organizations.”

Erdogan’s plan to send up to 3 million Syrian refugees into the 140-mile-long strip also runs counter to what the United States says was part of the agreement they had reached to allow only the 700,000 to 800,000 refugees who originally fled the area to resettle there. Turkey currently hosts more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees, but the government has recently begun deporting hundreds back to Syria as public sentiment turns against the migrants.

She should have said #ErdoganIsNotOurFriend-- Turkey is

Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesman for Erdogan, wrote on Twitter that Turkey has no interest in occupying or changing the demographics in northeastern Syria and that the “safe zone” would serve two purposes: secure Turkey’s borders and allow refugees to return home. [By allow he means "force."]

After months of warning about the turmoil such a move could create, U.S. officials said they are now watching Turkey’s actions closely to inform their own decisions about how quickly they must move the hundreds of troops expected to be affected.

“We're going to get out of the way,” another U.S. official said.

There are about 1,000 U.S. troops in northeastern Syria.

The SDF also predicted that Islamic State fighters would break out of prison camps the SDF manages in different areas of Syria.

The potential for greater risk to Islamic State prisons and camps comes after months of unsuccessful efforts by the Trump administration to persuade countries in Europe and elsewhere to repatriate their citizens.

The White House statement said that “Turkey will now be responsible for all ISIS fighters” in that area. “The United States will not hold them for what could be many years and great cost to the United States taxpayer,” Grisham said.

Erdogan said Monday that Turkey has “an approach to this issue” of ISIS, without specifying what it was.

The United Nations is also concerned about the impact that any Turkish operation would have on the protection of civilians in northeastern Syria, Panos Moumtzis, U.N. regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, said in a telephone interview.

“We want our message to all governments and actors on the ground to be to make sure that this latest development does not have an impact first of all on a new displacement of people,” he said.

The United Nations already provides services to approximately 700,000 people every month in the northeast. Moumtzis emphasized the importance of freedom of movement of civilians and ensuring the continuation of access to humanitarian groups. He stressed that any movement of Syrians must be done voluntarily and with safety and dignity.

“We have not had any specific instructions on” the safe zone, he said, adding that the United Nations has a contingency plan depending on how wide and deep the safe zone would be.

The planned offensive comes amid already heightened U.S. tensions with its NATO ally Turkey, over Ankara’s plans to operate a sophisticated Russian air defense system.

A former senior Trump administration official on the unwillingness of Senate Republicans to almost ever criticize Señor Trumpanzee: "Nobody wants to be the zebra that strays from the pack and gets gobbled up by the lion. They have to hold hands and jump simultaneously." Still a few other usually quiescent Trump enablers who denounced his decision this morning included Liz Cheney (WY), Adam Kinzinger (IL), Peter King (NY) and Marco Rubio (FL), who warned that withdrawing the troops would be a "grave mistake that will have implications far beyond Syria" and that "It would confirm Iran’s view of this administration and embolden them to escalate hostile attacks which in turn could trigger much broader and more dangerous regional war."

UPDATE: Trump Backed Down Already

He says he meant he was only redeploying 50 troops. Everyone is laughing at him.