I suppose I should comment on Gen. James Mattis’s resignation as Secretary of Defense. I thought that during his tenure as SecDef he was a welcome tonic to the often mercurial president. It was a thankless job and I’m surprised he stuck it out as long as he did. The editors of the New York Times declaimed:
Jim Mattis is stepping down as defense secretary, a day after President Trump overruled him and other top national security advisers by ordering the rapid withdrawal of all 2,000 American ground troops from Syria. Mr. Mattis, a retired four-star general, said in his letter of resignation that his views on a number of foreign policy and defense matters were fundamentally at odds with those of the president.
while the editors of the Wall Street Journal report:
On Thursday, Mr. Trump tweeted that “Getting out of Syria was no surprise†because he campaigned on it. But the abruptness of the announcement did catch his own advisers and the world by surprise. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Joseph Dunford, is widely reported to have not been consulted.
Withdrawing those 2,000 American troops from the Middle East is a significant act for which allies in the region and elsewhere needed a decent interval to prepare. Mr. Trump gave them none. The decision, which emerged after Mr. Trump’s phone call with Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan, did earn public praise from one big beneficiary—Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Then on Thursday Mr. Trump tweeted that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, one of his strongest appointees, “will be retiring†in February. This landed shortly after the Journal reported that Mr. Trump may withdraw most U.S. troops from Afghanistan within weeks. Mr. Mattis’s resignation letter makes clear he is leaving because he disagrees with Mr. Trump’s treatment of allies and his impulsive decision making.
This may come as a shock to the editors but “civilian” control” means that those are the president’s decisions to make. Not the Secretary of Defense’s. Not the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president’s.
My advice: carpe diem. Donald Trump may be the only president with the temerity to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan or, indeed, Syria. We aren’t making progress in Afghanistan any more and it’s unclear to me whether we’re making progress in Syria or not. In Syria a “political solution” that does not include leaving the Alawite regime in place is either wishful thinking or antithetical to our interests. The Kurds know that and are highly likely to make common cause with Syria.
As Lord Palmerston put it more than a century and a half ago, we have no permanent allies, only permanent interests. Turkey has not been our ally for at least 20 years. Can any Islamist country be a reliable NATO member? I have my doubts.
More people would have predicted Mattis would resign in protest of Trump starting a war, or escalating a war — then over a troop withdrawal in MENA.
I would not have predicted John Bolton as the NSA during a Syrian troop withdrawal and potentially an Afghanistan troop withdrawal – and staying on.
There were precious few reasons to vote for Trump, but this was one of them. Of course he held other positions on Syria, and many other things, during his campaign, but he at least mentioned leaving Syria. Would have been nice if he had done it in a competent manner, but who really expects that from him?
Steve
Turkey is the third oldest ally of the US, having joined the UN (then an anti-fascist military pact) in early 1945 and formally allying with the US in 1947. Only Britain and its colonies and De Gaulle’s French army have been allies longer, since 1942. We had no allies before that.
Turkey is the essential lynch pin in the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East and Persian Gulf. Without Turkey our position in those regions is untenable. Israel is not in any way necessary to our position, and it can be argued that Israel’s existence substantially undermines it. One should remember the USS Liberty.
You are probably dating Turkey’s disaffection to the Parliamentary vote in 2003 that denied the 4th ID permission to use Turkish territory to invade Iraq. In retrospect, that vote was prescient. The Iraq invasion was and is an unmitigated disaster, and disaster that needed Iranian intervention to stabilize Iraq and defeat ISIS.
Think about that. All that America has done is create chaos in the MENA. Iran was needed to stabilize the Middle East.
But the real source of the problem in Turkish-American relations is Washington. We have consistently supported Kurdish militias in Iraq and Syria that are actively trying to overthrow the Turkish government and partition Turkey. Moreover, we at least approved and likely instigated the coup d’etat against Erdogan, which almost killed him. And we continue to protect Fethullah Gulen, one of the architects of that coup.
It is better to say that American defected from the alliance with Turkey, and that America is undermining NATO by attempting to subvert one of its members.
Russia has demonstrated that it can be a much better ally than the US. The result of all our invasions and bombings there will be to enhance Russian prestige and influence throughout the word.
As for leaving Syria quickly, with only 2,000 soldiers, how else can you do it?
I think I would’ve announced the departure when it was past tense.