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.