better reasons<\/a>.\u00a0 He wants to stop America\u2019s involvement in \u201cendless wars.\u201d\u00a0 Which raises an important point.\u00a0 Why should we have gotten involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Syria?\u00a0 If we are to pull out of those intractable conflicts\u2013as Trump campaigned on and as Americans across the political spectrum now wish we would do\u2013it\u2019s going to be disruptive.\u00a0 Why should our troops get caught in the middle of an ethnic conflict that has been going on for centuries?<\/p>\nThat\u2019s a strong argument.\u00a0 But, unlike the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are not fighting a war in Syria.\u00a0 Though in a dangerous place, our troops are there to train and advise, not to engage in combat.\u00a0 They are also there to deter aggression, not just from Turkey but from Russia, which also has troops in Syria in support of the ruling dictator Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n
Our troops are \u201cin\u201d lots of places\u2013such as South Korea and Germany\u2013but we are not fighting wars there.\u00a0 Our military presence is in support of our allies for defensive and deterrent purposes.\u00a0 It might well be prudent to pull back from at least some of these entanglements.\u00a0 But this should be done in an orderly and honorable manner, not at the behest of an invader we were supposed to be defending against.\u00a0 The closest parallel to what we have done to the Kurds would be if North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un were to call the American president to say that he is planning to attack Seoul, asking us to please withdraw our military forces to enable him to do so.\u00a0 Or Russian president Vladimir Putin asking us to pull out of Germany so that he can invade Europe.\u00a0 And we obediently comply.<\/p>\n
UPDATE:\u00a0 Here is the danger for the United States:<\/strong>\u00a0 Turkey is a member of NATO.\u00a0 Under the terms of that treaty, an attack upon one member nation is an attack against all.\u00a0 Reportedly, the Syrian government (which all the rebel factions including the Kurds wants to overthrow) as supported by Russian troops will fight against the Turkish invasion.\u00a0 Erdogan had better get on the phone with Vladimir Putin, as he did with Trump, to ask if he could recall his troops.\u00a0 I suspect Putin will not be so agreeable.\u00a0 But if Syria attacks Turkey, NATO, including the U.S., would be obliged to go to war with Syria.\u00a0 (The Kurds have no nation of their own.\u00a0 They are an ethnic group scattered throughout Syria, Iran, Turkey, and Iraq, where they have a self-governing region.) And if Russia attacks Turkey, we would be obliged to go war with Russia.<\/p>\nThe lesson of World War II is that appeasement in the name of peace does not result in peace, but in war.\u00a0 And the lesson of World War I is that small, apparently trivial beginnings\u2013the assassination of an archduke; a phone call\u2013can, because of treaties, alliances, and other global complexities\u2013can result in a big war that nobody wants or expected.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Photo:\u00a0 Kurds and Americans from Kurdishstruggle [CC BY 2.0 (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0)] via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Kurds have been America’s most steadfast allies–fighting side by side in Iraq, and defeating ISIS on our behalf. But we have withdrawn our military advisors embedded with the Kurds in Syria to allow Turkey to launch a massive attack on their ethnic enemy. Why have we done this?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":44967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,23,49],"tags":[5404,4923,2570,4159],"class_list":["post-44850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-international","category-war-2","tag-kurds","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-syria","tag-turkey"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n