With the state of play in Syria rapidly shifting, President Trump seems to have arrived at the worst of all worlds. Trump’s name is already mud among the Syrian Kurdish fighters his administration abandoned when it “Faced with a crisis of its own making, a flailing superpower has turned to economic sanctions to pretend it is still relevant,” the Economist dryly observed. Amid the turmoil, Trump’s argument may be that he does not want to be relevant, at least in the hot spot that is war-ravaged Syria. He routinely blames the Obama administration, from which he inherited America’s checkered legacy of involvement in the Syrian war, including its firm alliance with the main faction of Syrian Kurds. Better, Trump tweeted, to not have to deal with it at all. And to that end, he could be getting his wish.
As part of a deal with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Democratic Forces — or SDF, the Syrian Kurdish-led faction backed by the United States but seen by Turkey as the analogue of an outlawed Kurdish separatist group within its own borders — invited in regime forces to help thwart Turkey and its militant proxies.
View the complete October 15 article by Ishaan Tharoor on The Wahsington Post website here.