6 | OCTOBER 31 • 2019
commentary
Why America Can’t
Escape the Middle East
Views
T
he excuses President Donald
Trump and his loyal fans continue
to put forward for his disastrous
decision to give Turkey a green light to
invade Syria continue to be as foolish
as they are disingenuous.
Pretending that it’
s not
really a betrayal to leave
loyal Kurdish allies in
the fight against ISIS to
the tender mercies of an
authoritarian and murder-
ous Turkish regime deter-
mined to destroy them
doesn’
t pass the smell test.
The same is true of efforts to argue
that the Kurds aren’
t worth our sym-
pathy because they weren’
t with us “at
Normandy,” as the president prepos-
terously claimed. Trashing that brave
people because they’
re not “all angels”
or because they are politically divided
is unworthy of a superpower who not
long ago was arming and training the
same people to do the dirty work in a
war against an enemy of America that
Americans didn’
t want to fight anymore.
But these terrible arguments were just
a smokescreen for something that has
little to do with the Kurds, whom most
Americans couldn’
t care less about, or
the admittedly complicated politics of
Syria and the Middle East. Americans
are tired of foreign conflicts.
That’
s why, no matter how absurd
Trump’
s self-justifications for his policy
blunder might be or how comically inept
his letter to Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan was as he vainly sought
to mitigate the damage he had already
done, there’
s no sign that his moves there
are doing him any political damage.
Trump’
s instinctive neo-isolationism
and talk about opposing endless wars
may be wrongheaded, but it’
s not unpop-
ular — and there are good reasons for
that.
Americans paid a high price in dealing
with the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
The war in Afghanistan was an unavoid-
able response to Al-Qaeda’
s assault on
America, yet after 18 years of inconclu-
sive fighting, the reason why that was
necessary has been largely forgotten.
The decision to invade Iraq turned out
to be a mistake, not least because it had
the unintended effect of strengthening
neighboring Iran.
As Trump’
s predecessor learned,
escaping that conflict wound up being
a lot more complicated than ordering
troop pullouts and a president claiming
that he had “ended” the war. That’
s what
President Barack Obama did in Iraq, and
the American people cheered. Many of
the same people are cheering Trump’
s
decision to get out of Syria and leave the
Kurds to fend for themselves.
Trump’
s crude rhetoric about the
Kurds is indefensible, but it’
s easy to
see why his comments about avoiding
spilling another drop of American blood
in the Middle East resonates with the
public.
Even many supporters of Israel are
backing him on this decision, though
the consensus in the Jewish state is that
the American retreat from Syria and its
encouragement of Turkish depredations
are a blow to the security of Israel and
the region, as well as a humanitarian
disaster for the Kurds.
Part of this is a matter of blind parti-
sanship. In our current bifurcated politi-
cal culture, most of the public takes their
cue as to how to think about the issues
from the president and his opponents,
rather than contemplating current events
for themselves. If Trump is for it —
even if it is something they would have
lauded had it come from a Democratic
president — most Democrats will still
oppose it, as Trump’
s stand on Jerusalem
illustrated.
The same was true with respect
to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Pro-
Israel Democrats would have called it
appeasement and a disgrace had GOP
president made such a deal. But since it
was Obama doing the appeasing, they
fell into line and supported it without
batting an eye. The same people who
applauded Obama’
s bug out from Iraq
are condemning Trump for similar con-
duct.
Still, there is more to this problem
than partisan hypocrisy.
As Obama discovered after his with-
drawal from Iraq and humiliating “red
line” fiasco in Syria, the price of dishon-
or can be quite high. Having washed his
hands of those countries and punted
their fate to Iran and Russia, it wasn’
t
long before a new threat arose. The
establishment of ISIS and its so-called
caliphate in large portions of Syria and
Iraq was the logical consequence of
Obama’
s policies. As that terror group
expanded the territory under its control
(and videos of the hideous atrocities it
Jonathan S.
Tobin
continued on page 12
Trump’s crude
rhetoric about the
Kurds is indefensible,
but it’s easy to see why
his comments about
avoiding spilling
another drop of
American blood in the
Middle East resonates
with the public.