The President’s foreign policy, or lack thereof, amounts to little more than instinctual appeasement and retreatism. By refusing to keep faith with our allies, he is quite literally surrendering America’s place in the world order.
This is an opinion article by the editor that was originally published at Porter Medium on January 16th, 2020.
Regional Betrayal, International Surrender
Peshmerga means, “Those who face death.” They are often poorly armed and outfitted with outdated equipment. They have a weak medical corps and lack consistent communication abilities. Despite these realities, they did not run from the initial ISIS foray into Iraq. Meanwhile, the Iraqi Army retreated and left much of their US-supplied advanced equipment to be captured by ISIS.
Throughout the conflict with ISIS, there were no more stubborn and determined fighters against the caliphate than the Kurdish Peshmerga. Trained and assisted by the US forces in the region, the Kurds took stronghold after stronghold from ISIS until the caliphate completely collapsed. Realities on the ground demonstrated again and again that without the Kurdish fighters, there is no way ISIS could have been defeated without a much more significant commitment of US personnel.
But despite all of this, President Trump withdrew US forces from the immediate area of Northern Syria last fall. His administration also granted tacit approval for an invasion of the region by Turkey. Turkey has long spoken ill of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan and its highly effective Peshmerga brigades, who were critical allies in the fight against ISIS. In many instances, Turkey has refused to distinguish the Peshmerga brigades from the Kurdish terrorist cells operating inside Turkey’s borders.
In other words, the United States abandoned a key ally and acquiesced to their region’s occupation by a geopolitical and military foe.
Not only that, but it’s yet another demonstration that Donald Trump and those he surrounds himself with are operating from a terribly flawed worldview that’s unable to grasp the value of allies in securing America’s interests across the globe without major troop deployments to active theaters of operation.
In abandoning the Kurds and other similarly short-sighted actions, such as essentially handing Afghanistan back to the Taliban or ordering major troop level cuts in Korea and Germany, the president thinks he’s ending endless wars, bringing the troops home, and forcing other countries to pay their fair share.
The reality is, the President’s approach is betraying the goodwill of those who share our values, signaling weakness to America’s enemies, and creating serious power vacuums that are going to be filled by regional and international destabilizing forces that are hostile to American interests. The President call’s his foreign policy, “America First.” History calls it appeasement, isolationism, and retreatism. Donald Trump is quite literally surrendering America’s place in the world order.
Strength is Keeping Faith
The fight against ISIS demonstrated the effectiveness of deploying US personnel in support of local allies. This strategy allowed the US and its partners to defeat the caliphate without a significant commitment of combat divisions to the region. It also provided local control of defeated areas, thus avoiding the necessity to police the streets in an overwhelming presence, as happened in Iraq.
But this strategy cannot prove successful in the future if we don’t keep faith with our allies. The Kurds have been our most consistent allies in the region, from their support of the Invasion of Iraq to the fight against ISIS. The Peshmerga brigades have proven to be dogged fighters in the name of freedom and one of the only capable secular forces (Muslims and Christians) in all of the Middle East. Iraqi Kurdistan is awash with pro-American sentiment.
It is unfortunate, but understandable, that the geopolitical realities of the region keep the US from supporting an independent Kurdistan. However, it was a travesty and a betrayal to retreat from the region and allow the vacuum to be filled by those who bear ill will to the Kurds.
Who knows what will come next in the volatile region of the Middle East. But it should be evident that we should have kept faith with those who fought so hard, and at such high a price, alongside us and against our enemies. It should also be apparent that we are going to need allies in the future. For good reason, Americans want a foreign policy that protects US interests abroad without becoming the world’s police. But betraying our allies is not the way to go about accomplishing that goal.