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Monday, October 28, 2019

Al-Bagdadi’s Death Does Not Mean War Against ISIS Is Over

The US raid that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over the weekend was a victory in the War on Terror, but winning the battle should not be confused with winning the war. Both ISIS and al Qaeda are still active threats and the victory should not be taken as an opportunity to leave the Middle East on a high note.

One person who is concerned that the US will declare victory and leave in the aftermath of the raid is Iraqi President Barham Salih. Salih, a pro-American leader, spoke with Axios last week, six days prior to the al-Bagdadi raid, and was already sounding the alarm.

"The staying power of the United States is being questioned in a very, very serious way," Salih said. "And allies of the United States are worried about the dependability of the United States."

“I'm worried about ethnic cleansing,” President Salih, who is an Iraqi Kurd, said, “And this has been the history, tragic history of the Kurdish people and this [is] dangerous and tragic. The humanitarian cost is just awful.”

Although President Salih was not aware of al-Bagdadi’s impending departure from life, he was well aware of President Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds and equivocations on whether to keep American soldiers in Syria at all. The Iraqis must be quite plausibly wondering if the American commitment to their country will be discarded as quickly as our commitment to the Kurds.

They have good reason to wonder since America has already abandoned Iraq once. In 2011, the Obama Administration failed to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement to maintain a small security force there. Three years later, the US had to send troops back to help the Iraqis beat back ISIS. It’s entirely possible that President Trump may be about to make a similar mistake.

Several reports have indicated that the timing of the al-Bagdadi raid was influenced by President Trump’s decision to leave northern Syria. Rukmini Callimachi, a Middle East correspondent for the New York Times, reported that al-Bagdadi’s location was determined “back in the summer” but the raid was deemed too risky because it was in Syrian and Russian airspace. With the US pullout looming, commanders decided to rush the raid. Their gamble paid off.

https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1188514608056811530?s=20

There is also the irony that the raid would not have been possible, or at least would have been much more difficult, if President Trump’s policies had been seen through to fruition. Axios also reported that the raid was based at least partially on intelligence received from Syrian Kurds and depended on having American forces in the region to carry out the attack. Jimmy Carter’s Desert One debacle from 1980 is an example of how long-range missions are far more complex and risky than raids that can be staged locally.

President Salih stressed that, despite the concerns of some Americans about “endless wars,” the US should not leave while ISIS and al-Qaeda are still threats, saying, “The military defeat of ISIS is an important victory, but not incomplete [sic] and precarious too as well. It can easily unravel. And this is what I'm worried about.”

“Five years of blood, treasure, effort — a lot of human misery went into defeating ISIS,” Salih added. “This victory was [not] easy, and for anyone to become complacent about it is terrible, reckless, dangerous, tragic.”

The Iraqi president also cautioned Americans about Iraq’s role in a possible war with Iran. “The United States is an important ally, partner. … We want this to continue and we definitely don't want our territory to be used,” he said. “We should try and stop it because Iraq cannot sustain it, cannot survive it.”

Salih’s misgivings about the US using bases in Iraq to attack Iran goes back to the question of whether America would stand by its ally. Iraq is undoubtedly concerned that the US would launch its limited number of airstrikes and then go home, leaving Iraq to deal with the fallout from Iran. Americans may not remember, but Salih definitely does, that Iran and Iraq fought a decade-long war in the 1980s. The Iraqi president does not want to repeat that experience.

President Trump’s decision to authorize the raid to kill al-Bagdadi was a good one and it led to a great triumph. The big question is what course Mr. Trump will take next. Will he follow President Obama’s example and bring the troops home prematurely or will he stick it out until they win?

Originally published on The Resurgent

Monday, October 21, 2019

October 21st, 2019 Chris Wallace: Top Republican Puts Chances Of Trump’s Removal At 20 Percent

While speaking with Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney on “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace said that a "well-connected" Republican source in Washington had put the chances of enough Republicans voting to remove Donald Trump at 20 percent. The revelation calls into question the conventional wisdom that Republicans will vote to protect Trump in a Senate trial.

During the interview, Wallace cited Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s op-ed in the Washington Post calling President Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds in Syria “a grave mistake” and last week’s House vote rebuking the president in which 129 Republicans crossed the aisle to vote against Trump’s Syria policy. Wallace then said that he had “talked to a very well-connected Republican in Washington, someone whose name you would know well, who says that if the House votes to impeach and it gets to a trial in the Senate, there's now a 20 percent chance enough Republicans would vote with Democrats to impeach the president.”

When asked to respond, Mulvaney said, "That’s just absurd. The comment about the 20 percent is just a person who clearly doesn't know what they're talking about."

Mulvaney added that the president recognized that it was “not politically popular in this town to make the decision that he made to move the troops out of Syria. He ran on it. He told people he would do it if he won and he’s doing it now.”

When Wallace asked if there was concern that the president was losing support in Congress, Mulvaney responded, “The president is extraordinarily popular back home, more popular in the swing districts now that impeachment has started.”

Wallace did not say which Republican had given him the estimate, but Republican elected officials seem more likely to criticize the president in the wake of Trump’s Syria decision and the subsequent Turkish invasion of Kurdish territory. In addition to Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and others have spoken out against President Trump’s policy of retreat.

To remove Trump from office, the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate. If all 45 Democrats vote to convict in the Senate trial, it would take at least 22 Republican votes, more than 40 percent of the Republican caucus, to remove Mr. Trump. While that seems like long odds, if the president’s behavior continues to become more worrisome to his own party, the chances of removal could continue to increase.

If Republicans continue to desert the president, it also increases the chances that Mr. Trump will be pressured to resign and leave office under his own terms rather than submit to a Senate trial with its possible humiliating result. Two other presidents have been impeached, but, if convicted by the Senate, Donald Trump would be the first and only president to have been forcibly removed from office.

Recent Gallup polling shows that 52 percent of Americans support Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. In 1998, only 32 percent agreed that Bill Clinton should be impeached and removed. The share of Americans who though Richard Nixon should be impeached and removed was 38 percent in 1974 before he resigned.

In the same interview, Wallace also confronted Mulvaney about his claim and subsequent walk-back that the Trump Administration withheld aid from Ukraine as part of a three-part quid pro quo. Mulvaney first denied making the statement, saying, “That’s what people are saying that I said, but I didn’t say that.”

When confronted with the tape of his words, Mulvaney insisted, “I never said there was a quid pro quo, because there isn’t.”

Originally published on the Resurgent

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Pence Negotiates Turkish Ceasefire

Vice President Pence and Turkish President Erdogan announced a five-day ceasefire that would allow Kurdish forces, America’s former allies, to withdraw from the “safe zone” being established by Turkish forces, Reuters reported. Turkish officials hailed the agreement, saying that they got “exactly what we wanted.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called the agreement a pause, rather than a ceasefire, but that Turkey would allow Kurdish fighters to withdraw. Cavusoglu said that ceasefires could only be agreed upon by legitimate parties, which would not include the Kurds, who Turkey considers to be terrorists.

Under the terms of the agreement, Kurdish fighters would have to surrender their heavy weapons and destroy fighting positions. Disputed areas would be left in Turkish hands. Pence said that Turkey had agreed to remain clear of the border city of Kobani, but Cavusoglu denied that Turkey had made such a commitment.

In a fox-guarding-the-henhouse moment, a joint U.S.-Turkish statement released after the talks said, “The safe zone will be primarily enforced by the Turkish Armed Forces.”

In a tweet, President Trump called the agreement “great news” and thanked Erdogan for saving millions of lives.

A senior Turkish official told CNN that Turkey got ” exactly what they wanted” from the agreement. Turkey was unleashed to act against the Kurds and, amid the outcry against Turkish brutality, the Trump Administration effectively handed Erdogan a strip of land in Syria and moved the Kurds away from Turkish borders. As part of the deal, the US also agreed not to implement sanctions against Turkey.

A US official agreed that Turkey won a major diplomatic and military victory, telling CNN, “This is essentially the US validating what Turkey did and allowing them to annex a portion of Syria and displace the Kurdish population.”

“This is what Turkey wanted and what POTUS green-lighted,” the official continued. “I do think one reason Turkey agreed to it is because of the Kurds have put up more of a resistance and they could not advance south any further as a result. If we don’t impose sanctions then Turkey wins big time.”

President Assad of Syria, whose territory is being given Turkey, has not commented on the deal. The Kurds allied with the Assad regime as a protective measure after being abandoned by the US and Syrian government forces were moving into the disputed Kobani area. It is possible that Syria, backed by Iran and Putin’s Russia, will not accept a pause that indefinitely puts Syrian land under Turkish control.

As a bottom line, the Trump Administration make Erdogan a deal that he couldn’t refuse in giving him everything that he wanted. The deal repairs Donald Trump’s unforced diplomatic error by fulfilling all of Erdogan’s war aims, save for one thing. The Kurds will live to fight another day rather than being exterminated. The survival of the Kurds, in alliance with Assad, and by extension Iran and Russia, lays the seeds for future generations of violence and bloodshed.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Bipartisan House Rebuke Of Trump Leads To Bizarre White House Confrontation

In a bipartisan vote, the House of Representatives rebuked President Trump for his stand-down order in Syria. The resolution, which passed overwhelmingly, “calls on the United States to work to ensure that the Turkish military acts with restraint and respects existing agreements relating to Syria” and asks the “White House to present a clear and specific plan for the enduring defeat of ISIS.”

The resolution passed easily with strong support from Republicans in addition to unanimous support from Democrats. The final tally was 354-60 with 129 Republicans crossing the aisle to criticize Mr. Trump’s actions.

The vote in the House was followed by a White House meeting between a Democratic delegation and the Trump Administration that quickly devolved into a shouting match per Associated Press reports. The reports coming out of the meeting tell of bizarre behavior on the part of President Trump.

The meeting reportedly began with the president bragging about a letter that he wrote to Turkish President Erdogan. The letter, which has been released to the public, is dated Oct. 9, three days after Mr. Trump reportedly gave Erdogan the green light to invade Syria and agreed to pull back US forces in the region.

https://twitter.com/katierogers/status/1184567108853751809?s=20

The letter is another example of a release that the White House thinks will make the president look good but actually makes him look even worse. While President Trump takes a tough tack in the letter, probably in response to almost universal condemnation, the letter comes across as very juvenile with the president telling Erdogan, “Let’s make a good deal!” Trump also tells the Turkish leader that history “will look upon you as a devil if good things don’t happen” and not to “be a tough guy.” Trump closes by saying, “I will call you later.”

Turkish sources say that Erdogan threw the letter into the trash.

The discussion of the letter was followed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reading a quote from former Defense Secretary James Mattis on the need to keep American troops in Syria. Trump responded that Mattis was the “world’s most overrated general.”

"You know why? He wasn’t tough enough," Trump reportedly said. "I captured ISIS. Mattis said it would take two years. I captured them in one month."

Mattis has recently warned that ISIS has not been totally destroyed and that the terrorist group could be reconstituted if the US withdraws from Syria.

"ISIS is not defeated," Mattis told NBC on Sunday. "We have got to keep the pressure on ISIS so they don't recover."

When Trump was asked about the possibility that ISIS could revive, Trump answered that the ISIS prisoners released by Turkish militias numbered "fewer than 100" and were the “least dangerous” ISIS prisoners. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper undercut this claim, saying that he did not know if the prisoners were the least dangerous. Other reports have put the number of escaped ISIS prisoners in the hundreds, but no one really knows for sure how many of the estimated 10,000 ISIS fighters have escaped, Defense One reports.

The meeting then devolved into a tit-for-tat between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the president. Pelosi reportedly told the president that Russia had always wanted a “foothold in the Middle East” and that his policy was giving them what they wanted. The speaker said, “All roads with you lead to Putin” and then things got worse.

Trump told Pelosi, “I hate ISIS more than you do.”

Pelosi answered, “You don’t know that.”

Schumer interrupted to ask, “Is your plan to rely on the Syrians and the Turks?”

Trump replied, “Our plan is to keep the American people safe.”

Pelosi responded, “That’s not a plan. That’s a goal.”

Trump then reportedly deflected to President Obama’s “red line” in Syria from 2013 and called Pelosi a “third-rate [or possibly ‘third-grade’] politician.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) interjected, “This is not useful.” At that point, Pelosi and Hoyer got up to walk out.

As they left, Trump delivered a parting shot, saying, “Goodbye, we’ll see you at the polls.”

Few Republicans at the meeting have spoken out, but White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham disputed the reports, telling Fox News, “The President was measured, factual and decisive, while Speaker Pelosi's decision to walk out was baffling, but not surprising. She had no intention of listening or contributing to an important meeting on national security issues. While democratic leadership chose to storm out and get in front of the cameras to whine, everyone else in the meeting chose to stay in the room and work on behalf of this country."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) spoke to reporters after the meeting, saying, “I see a pattern of behavior with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She storms out of another meeting, trying to make it unproductive. The other Democrats stayed and actually had a very productive meeting.

President Trump tweeted out a series of pictures and comments detailing the meeting, including one that has already become famous, which depicts Speaker Pelosi lecturing the president. Trump captioned the photo, “Nervous Nancy's unhinged meltdown!”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1184597281808498688?s=20

In another tweet, Trump said that Pelosi had a “total meltdown” and asked his followers to “pray for her, she is a very sick person!”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1184620202480193537?s=20

Trump’s tweets apparently were posted after the president watched Democratic comments after the meeting. At the Capitol after the meeting, Pelosi told reporters, “I pray for the president all the time, and I tell him that -- I pray for his safety and that of his family. Now, we have to pray for his health -- because this was a very serious meltdown on the part of the president.”

While most of the details of the meeting have come from Democratic sources and are quite likely shaded to make themselves look good and Trump look bad, many of the claims ring true. The president’s Twitter feed includes tweets attacking Barack Obama’s Syria policy and charging that Democrats liked the idea of ending wars and bringing troops home “until I took it.” The US troops are still in Syria, however, and Trump has announced plans to deploy even more Americans to Saudi Arabia. As Erick Erickson pointed out this morning, Trump has both denied giving Turkey a green light to invade and said the opposing sides should “fight it out.”

While it is entirely possible that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats trolled President Trump and badgered him into getting angry so they could stage a walkout and make him look deranged, the president apparently walked into their trap. Let’s face it: Making President Trump look deranged is not difficult these days. His own words do the job pretty well.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Trump Cuts And Runs

A week after President Trump ordered US troops in northern Syria to pull back and allow Turkish forces to attack America’s Kurdish allies, the president has now ordered the approximately 1,000 American soldiers in the region to leave northern Syria altogether. The president’s decision to cut and run comes after numerous reports of Turkish atrocities against Kurdish fighters and civilians, the escape of hundreds of ISIS prisoners detained by the Kurds, and a Turkish artillery strike near a US Special Forces camp that was apparently targeted intentionally to intimidate the president.

On “Face The Nation” today, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said, “We have American forces likely caught between two opposing, advancing armies and it's a very untenable situation. I spoke with the President last night, after discussions with the rest of the national security team, and he directed that we begin a deliberate withdrawal of forces from northern Syria, which is where most of our forces are.”

Esper also said that reports that the Kurds were making a deal with the Russians were a factor in the president’s decision. Yesterday, CNN reported that Kurdish leaders were reacting to their abandonment by the United States by seeking protection from Russia.

"You have given up on us. You are leaving us to be slaughtered," Kurdish Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi told Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, William Roebuck, on Thursday. "You are not willing to protect the people, but you do not want another force to come and protect us. You have sold us. This is immoral.”

"I need to know if you are capable of protecting my people, of stopping these bombs falling on us or not. I need to know, because if you're not, I need to make a deal with Russia and the regime now and invite their planes to protect this region," Mazloum said.

Esper and other members of the Trump Administration say that the US has not abandoned the Kurds and that Turkey would have invaded even without Mr. Trump’s retreat earlier this week.

"We are not abandoning our Kurdish partner forces and US troops remain with them in other parts of Syria," Esper told reporters at the Pentagon. "We remain in close coordination with the Syrian Democratic Forces who helped us destroy the physical caliphate of ISIS, but I will not place American service members in the middle of a longstanding conflict between the Turks and the Kurds, this is not why we are in Syria.” A week ago, there was no conflict between the Turks and Kurds in Syria.

President Trump tweeted this morning that the Administration was working with Congress to implement sanctions on Turkey, but the president has not made ending the war that his actions started a high priority. Mr. Trump played golf on both Saturday and Sunday.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1183376270731763714?s=20

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) tweeted on Sunday that the Trump Administration had not contacted him nor had he been notified of a congressional briefing regarding the “the unfolding events in Syria / Turkey / Saudi Arabia.”

https://twitter.com/chiproytx/status/1183375494374408192?s=20

Roy’s mention of Saudi Arabia refers to President Trump’s stated intention to deploy American forces to the Middle Eastern kingdom to help defend against another Iranian attack. At about the same time that the president was defending his abandonment of the Kurds in Syria by tweeting “The Endless Wars Must End,” he was also authorizing American entry into the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran with an additional 3,000 troops, more than twice as many as were deployed to Syria.

It isn’t clear why the president felt the need to abruptly remove American forces from the Syrian frontier, but it is clear that a situation that was stable and relatively peaceful last week has quickly become another “endless war.” It was not the deployment of American soldiers that caused the fighting to erupt in northern Syria, it was Trump’s decision to remove them.

While American soldiers in Syria kept the peace between Turkey and the Kurds, that was not their primary mission. The Americans were there to destroy ISIS. So, how is that going? Not too good. Mr. Trump’s foreign policy blunder directly threatens America as ISIS gets a “second lease on life” according to a US official.

https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1183428032587018240?s=20

It is also unclear why deploying Americans to Saudi Arabia is not fueling more “endless wars” but keeping them is Syria was. Maybe it’s because the Saudis have the money to pay for America’s friendship and aid and the Kurds don’t. Maybe it’s because the president’s friendships with dictators Erdogan and Putin trumped America’s alliance with the Kurds. Who really knows what has gone through the president’s mind over the past few weeks?

The only certainty is that Mr. Trump’s actions have destabilized the region and are directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Many of those casualties are innocent people and many more of them trusted American honor and loyalty. It is difficult to see Donald Trump’s actions as anything other than a cynical betrayal resulting from a massively incompetent and incoherent foreign policy.

While his supporters champion Trump as a fighter, on the foreign policy front, he is anything but. The president’s record on international relations is one of appeasing dictators and betraying allies. His actions have handed Syria to the unholy trinity of Turkey, Russia, and ISIS.

An American Special Forces soldier summed up the entire situation on Wednesday, saying, “I am ashamed for the first time in my career. Turkey is not doing what it agreed to. It's horrible.”

Donald Trump’s actions have made America ashamed again.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Turkey Begins Offensive Against Kurds In Syria

Turkey has launched an offensive in northeastern Syria according to multiple reports. The Turkish offensive is aimed at seizing territory held by US-backed Kurds operating as Syrian Defense Forces (SDF).

The official Twitter account of the Turkish presidency tweeted that President Erdogan ordered the new offensive, which the Turks, in Orwellian fashion, have dubbed “Operation Peace Spring.”

CNN reported that Erdogan’s Turkish language Twitter account said that the offensive was aimed at “terrorists.” Turkey and the Kurds, an ethnic minority that does not have an official state, have a long history of animosity.

Erdogan said on Twitter, “Our aim is to destroy the terror corridor which is trying to be established on our southern border and to bring peace and peace to the region.” He added that Turkey “will preserve Syria’s territorial integrity and liberate local communities from terrorists.”

The stage was set for the Turkish offensive on Sunday when the Trump Administration announced unexpectedly that US forces in the region would withdraw to positions that would not block a Turkish invasion. The US has said that it would not intervene to protect the Kurds if Turkey attacks.

Trump’s decision was reportedly made without consulting military advisors. An official on the National Security Council with direct knowledge of Trump’s telephone conversation with Erdogan told Newsweek that the US president got “rolled” and that the move left the Defense Department “completely stunned.” A similar Trump announcement last resulted in the angry resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis.

“President Trump was definitely out-negotiated and only endorsed the troop withdrawal to make it look like we are getting something—but we are not getting something,” the NSC official said. “The U.S. national security has entered a state of increased danger for decades to come because the president has no spine and that’s the bottom line.”

Many Republicans also condemned the president’s decision. ” “A precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria would only benefit Russia, Iran and the Assad regime. And it would increase the risk that ISIS and other terrorist groups regroup,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “As we learned the hard way during the Obama administration, American interests are best served by American leadership, not by retreat or withdrawal.”

As the news of the US retreat broke on Monday, President Trump tweeted, “If Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off-limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey.”

It is not clear whether President Trump considers a Turkish attack on the Kurds to be “off-limits.” At press time, Mr. Trump had not commented on the Turkish offensive.

Originally published on The Resurgent