Why is Putin Smiling?

“We have won against ISIS. We’ve beaten them, and we’ve beaten them badly.” Donald Trump

Getting the United States out of Syria, leaving Trump’s America in the shadow of the unpopular Saudi and Israeli regimes, is a Putin dream come true. Recep Erdogan, Turkey’s autocratic President is cracking a wide grin too. Seems The Donald got conned in a phone call with Erdogan who convinced Trump that there was no longer an ISIS problem in Syria. If you ignore the 30,000 ISIS fighters in Syria, I guess. Under-informed Donald, without any support from any of his military advisors, said “OK,” and our troops in Syria are on their way home.

So now, Erdogan’s getting to slaughter the Kurdish fighters (U.S. allies) who decimated ISIS from the ground, with American supplied munitions, while U.S. air support struck ISIS from above. You see, Kurds seem to want their own homeland, and Erdogan has declared anyone harboring such ambitions as terrorists. Without an American umbrella, Kurds are ripe for the killing.

Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani are cheering too. The “sanction king of the world” – Donald Trump – has hit Iran hard… again. A globally wildly unpopular United States, seen by most as having reneged repeatedly on America’s treaty commitments (such as the Paris climate accord, NAFTA and more importantly to Iran, the six-party nuclear accord) and aligned with global pariahs like Israel and Saudi Arabia, is abandoning a military foothold in a country within Iran’s cadre of regional partners.

Syria’s Bashir al-Assad, Iran’s best friend, is a happy camper too. The nasty U.S. is leaving, allowing Syria to increase its ties with Russia, the country that supplied the weapons and even the pilots and soldiers that allowed Assad to decimate his rebel opponents and to hold power in Damascus. For Assad, also a dream come true. Now the Middle East knows that the U.S. has yielded regional superpower influence to Russia. The remaining ISIS fighters in Syria also have one less enemy to deal with.

Though all the U.S. has in Syria are a couple of thousand troops, the optics of a complete withdrawal send a clear signal to the rest of the Islamic Middle East that Russia is the go-to superpower, and the United States simply doesn’t matter anymore. The Middle East was in the process of realigning constituencies; the withdrawal of the United States is creating a series of new coalitions and power-sharing agreements that do not involve us or our remaining regional allies. Generally, the winners are extremists and autocrats. Our Middle Eastern policies have the consistency of a yo-yo… and Donald Trump has reversed decades of American efforts in the region.

“Numerous foreign policy experts and former officials and diplomats branded the decision a mistake, in part because the defeat of the Islamic State militancy — Trump’s stated reason to have troops in Syria — is not yet complete or, to use the administration’s word, ‘enduring.’… ‘Like walking away from a forest fire that is still smoldering underfoot,’ said retired Adm. James Stavridis, former NATO commander.

“For many, the withdrawal also represents the United States ceding its traditional dominance in the Middle East. Already, Iran, Russia and Turkey were months into negotiations on Syria’s political future — excluding the United States… As if on cue, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani traveled to the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Wednesday [12/19] and lavished praise on the country, especially as a counter-force to the United States.

“The withdrawal hands victories to two of the United States’ most fierce adversaries, Iran and Russia, who have been steadily carving out parts of the country for their own purposes and in cooperation with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“If Iran moves in to fill the vacuum that a U.S. pullback would leave, it will finally have its pathway to the sea. And Russian President Vladimir Putin will be able to add to the foothold he has been building in the Middle East.

“Ally Turkey, long uncomfortable with U.S. support for Kurdish fighters in Syria, will be appeased. But those Kurds, who have been trained by and fought alongside U.S. special forces, are likely to feel abandoned by their American sponsors and left vulnerable to a full Turkish military assault east of the Euphrates River. They may feel forced either to flee or cut their own deal with Assad.

“Washington will be left without leverage in Syria, which in turn will weaken its hand in other Middle East negotiations and trouble spots — chief among those, Iran, a top priority for the administration… ‘America’s hand at a negotiating table and in any regional containment strategy will be much diminished,’ said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank, who specializes in Syria… ‘Demanding Iranian forces leave Syria as part of a negotiated settlement was a boldly unrealistic demand in the first place, but to stick to that position now would look absurd,’ Lister said.

“Moscow, especially, stands to benefit. Countries in the Middle East, including Israel, are increasingly turning to Russia. Before, the United States was their partner in aid, weapons and trade. But the Trump administration is seen as inconsistent, experts say, with the Syria withdrawal the latest example… ‘This fundamentally undercuts U.S. credibility. Again,” said Ilan Goldenberg, who heads the Middle East program at the Center for a New American Security. “It shows how fickle we are.’…

“‘Trump is withdrawing from Syria under Turkish threat, ceding one-third of Syria and any influence over the political outcome,’ Martin Indyk, a former U.S. assistant secretary of State and former ambassador to Israel, said on Twitter. ‘The days of American dominance in the Middle East are over. All hail Putin, Erdogan (and Khameini),’ he wrote, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran.

“Trump officials say the U.S. remains engaged in the Middle East, primarily in its very close relationship with Israel. Trump has said he wanted to forge the ‘ultimate deal,’ a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. But two years into his administration and despite the special attention of his son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, no deal has materialized.” Los Angeles Times, December 20^th.

Strange that those predominantly supportive of Trump’s move include some pretty powerful Democrats, while Republican players have become his harshest critics. Trump then expanded his withdrawal pledge beyond Syria to Afghanistan. Arch conservative, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, who totally opposed the Syrian withdrawal, tweeted on December 20^th:  “‘The conditions in Afghanistan – at the present moment – make American troop withdrawals a high risk strategy,” Graham wrote on Twitter Thursday. “If we continue on our present course we are setting in motion the loss of all our gains and paving the way toward a second 9/11.’

“‘I have just returned from Afghanistan and can say – without hesitation – ISIS-K remains a direct threat to our homeland and they would dramatically benefit from a reduced American troop presence,’ he stated in another tweet… The tweets came after the Wall Street Journal reported: “A day after a contested decision to pull American military forces from Syria, officials said Thursday that President Trump has ordered the start of a reduction of American forces in Afghanistan.” AOLNews.com, December 21^st.

When the most stabilizing force in Trump’s cabinet, Defense Secretary James Mattis openly and very publicly disagreed with the President, the other shoe dropped. “Mattis' resigned a day after Trump announced that U.S. troops in Syria would be withdrawn, a decision that upended American policy in the region, and on the same day that officials said the president was considering a substantial U.S. pullout from the long-running conflict in Afghanistan.

“‘Because you have a right to a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position,’ Mattis said in his resignation letter, released by the Pentagon.” Thompson Reuters, December 29^th. He’ll be gone by the end of February. Bring in a “yes man” through the revolving door?

Days later, Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the State Department’s Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, also resigned, saying, “The recent decision by the president came as a shock and was a complete reversal of policy that was articulated to us… It left our coalition partners confused and our fighting partners bewildered.” Trump then doubled down to threaten a government shutdown if he did not get his wall funded, the one Mexico was going to pay for. The markets crashed. The government shut down. The markets just kept falling to their lowest level in 2018.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and which countries in the world are going to trust any commitments ever made by any future American president?