Considered opinion: The Syria withdrawalA Hasty Departure Threatens to Help Assad and ISIS

The London Times published this editorial on 8 October 2019

Men can have friends,” remarked Charles de Gaulle, “but statesmen cannot.” It might have been an aphorism designed for the era of President Trump who has lambasted NATO allies for criticizing his trade policies and for not spending enough on defense.

In resolving to pull U.S. troops out of north-east Syria, thereby apparently acceding to a demand by President Erdogan of Turkey to abandon joint operations separating Turkish forces from Kurdish fighters, Mr. Trump has at least been generous to a NATO ally. It is nonetheless a disturbing move that threatens to turn Kurdish forces, who have borne the brunt of containing Islamic State, towards the ambit of the despotic regime of President Assad. The U.S. decision will dismay allies, embolden ISIS, and give satisfaction to autocrats, not only Mr. Erdogan but also the regimes in Russia and Iran. Mr. Trump should think again.

Kurdish militias were crucial to the American aim of defeating Isis in Syria. Yet Turkey regards the Kurds as a terrorist threat. There is some justification for this belief. The Syrian Democratic Forces include the military arm of a party once known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which massacred civilians in Turkey in the 1990s. It is a reasonable aim of US policy to revive peace talks between the Kurds and Ankara. A step towards this was to agree with Turkey in August a joint operations center to police a safe zone on the Syrian border, separating Turkish and Kurdish forces. Mr. Trump appears to have reneged on that decision and abandoned the Kurds.

The president has long expressed his wish to disengage from overseas entanglements. Bringing U.S. troops out of a combat zone does not mean that American interests cease to be threatened, however. Only by engaging in these theatres can the U.S. secure its long-term interests. Now Kurds guarding thousands of Isis fighters are preparing to abandon their posts and flee in anticipation of a Turkish invasion. In a series of mercurial tweets, Mr. Trump declared that it was Turkey’s responsibility to guard the 12,000 Isis prisoners. Ankara may have other ideas.

In the meantime, the clear winner from these shifts in policy is the Assad regime. With his backers in the Kremlin, Assad has maintained that his pitiless eight-year assault on the Syrian people is really a struggle against Islamist terrorism. Mr. Trump’s decision could scarcely be better designed to confirm to Kurds that this mendacious message, under which Damascus has committed atrocities against civilians, is in fact true. It isn’t. Yet to the West’s allies in Syria it becomes more plausible. It similarly gives heart to President Putin and the mullahs in Tehran that their client Assad has prevailed against the might of U.S. foreign policy and international opinion.

Turkey has undoubtedly suffered the costs of Assad’s barbarism. There are about 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey and Mr. Erdogan has said he intends to resettle two million of them in territory taken from the Kurds. Yet these refugees are predominantly Arabs; settling them in the Kurdish safe area may at best shunt them into another humanitarian catastrophe, and perhaps cause further conflict.

There is no substitute in foreign policy for giving a clear message to allies and adversaries. Mr. Trump’s precipitate withdrawal demoralizes the first and rewards the second.