To further mark the previous posting's occasion, I would like to state a verity before talking about Syria's conflict. It appears that almost anything the Democrats and Never-Trumpers, Neoliberals, and Neocons stand for, claim, or assert, is a proper gauge for falsehood and outright nonsense. Thus, judgment seems to come easy these days: Espouse the opposite of what these maniacs – such as Pelosi, Schiff, Sanders, Graham, Romney, Bolton, as well as most of the so-called pundits on the MSM networks – state, one cannot be far off the truth. The adequacy and real legitimacy of the respective viewpoint then become just a matter of taste and personal emphasis within the overall judgment range.
That logic serves well to find out the truth regarding the withdrawal of American troops from the northeastern part of Syria and the alleged 'leaving the Kurds in the lurch' is concerned. Consider the opposite of the artificial outrage of the swamp creatures inside and outside the beltway, and the actual reality reveals itself.
The argument that the US has betrayed the Kurds, who fought alongside the US to defeat ISIS, is preposterous and practically nonsensical. With the ISIS caliphate gone, Turkey was determined to establish a safe zone against Kurdish forces in Syria, which it considers an anti-Turkish terror group. US intelligence had observed week-long preparations for a potential operation. It inferred severe intent on Turkey's part, which even in last-minute phone conversations between Presidents Trump and Erdogan could not be discouraged. Quite obviously, the US administration neither greenlighted the operation nor could it dissuade Turkey from carrying it out. Even when reinforced by the relocation of other US troops, the few dozen US special forces in northeastern Syria could neither have prevented nor warded off a Turkish incursion.
It was thus clearly the correct decision to get the US troops out of the way. This move not only helped to avoid combat between friendly NATO forces. It also set the stage for the Kurds to turn to the Syrian Army, which is now moving to the border, taking over the Kurdish population's protection, and is taking back control over its entire territory.
That military brass as well as all the armchair generals in the US Congress (led by the warmonger GOP Senator Lindsay Graham), who blame the US to have deserted its Kurdish allies, have not yet come to terms with the fact (and probably never will) that the entire Syrian catastrophe began with the ill-advised regime-change operation the US launched against Assad some seven years ago.
In the blog post of May 10, 2013 (https://www.edwinseditorial.blogspot.com.edwinseditorial.com/2013/05/disastrous-foreign-policy-failures.html), I denounced the colossal error of politically and militarily supporting dubious insurgent radicals to promote regime change in Syria, after similar policies in Egypt and Libya had already wrought terrible results.
Since then, we have observed the unspeakable mayhem the US has caused in the misguided and failed regime-change effort to oust President Assad. For this effort, it employed the help of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Assad conglomerate of Kurds and Sunni Arabs, and the Kurdish PYD, a follower of the communist PKK, which Ankara considers to be a terrorist organization.
When Russia entered in 2015 to prop the Assad regime and restore the integrity of Syrian territory, it became evident that the US's intervention - illegal according to International Law and unethical in principle (as I explained in the respective postings) - was supposed to fail. Alas, in its Russophobe and foolish regime-change attitude, Washington rejected Moscow's offer to fight the Islamic State jointly. Instead, it provided money and weapons as well as air support and special forces-backing to Kurdish-dominated organizations.
The failure of Washington's foreign affairs policies and the prediction that it will end in a massive embarrassment for the United States in Syria I explained in my post of September 27, 2017 (https://www.edwinseditorial.blogspot.com.edwinseditorial.com/2017/09/why-my-north-korea-resolve-could-have.html)
President Trump's decision not to engage in a war with Turkey will certainly prevent another interventionist folly from taking place – foolishness would have further exacerbated the already complex and highly intricate situation in northern Syria.
Heavily brokered by Russia, the decision also allowed the Kurdish SDF to do what was long overdue - turn to Damascus and the Syrian Army for protection. It looks like Syria seizes upon the opportunity of the cease-fire US envoys Pence and Pompeo have negotiated with Erdogan to regain control over this part of its territory. Once sovereignty is restored and national security over the entire region provided by its regular armed forces, any reason for Turkish incursion into Syria will be void.
Let us not kid ourselves: The US' former "Kurdish allies" were, in reality, nothing but a bunch of bought – with tremendous amounts of money and armament - mercenaries, who did the US' bidding in the area. Their questionable commitment to fighting the Islamic State was more or less a pretense of carving out a portion of Syria and possibly Turkey and achieving one of their long-term goals of creating some autonomous region for themselves.
All in all, the outcry in US leftist and neocon quarters, as well as the warmongering, is not only unwarranted but outright stupid. Laudable exceptions turned out to be GOP Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard. Both criticized the interventionist US policies and supported President Trump's paradigmatic change in foreign relations. The loony Hillary Clinton, who perpetrated the terrible policy mistakes during former President Obama's tenure, disparages Gabbard as a Russian agent for her stance.
What is also quite appalling is the lack of loyalty among the Republican Party, 129 of whose representatives signed on when the House put forward a vote to condemn the President's troop withdrawal in Syria. The military-industrial lobby's grip on Washington, in combination with the meanwhile prominent Trump-Derangement-Syndrome, seems to suffocate any reasonable decency as to the business of war on both sides of the aisle.
The disregard for the Presidential prerogative to determine the course of foreign affairs and national security and the viciousness with which the belligerent Washington establishment answers any course correction to the failed policies of the past couple of decades is quite alarming.
It points to the degree of corruption of minds and hearts in the capital and deficits in professionalism, and a lack of comprehension of civic and human affairs.
No doubt, as far as its political culture is concerned, this Republic is in serious trouble.
