michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today: President Trump said that he would withdraw U.S. troops from the Syrian border with Turkey, saying, quote, “It is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars” and “bring our soldiers home.” How that decision could lead to the wholesale destruction of one of America’s most loyal allies in the Middle East. It’s Tuesday, October 8. Eric, set the scene for us in northern Syria on Monday.

eric schmitt

So along the treacherous northern Syrian border with Turkey, United States Special Forces have been moving into small encampments. These are Syrian military outposts, many of them with large concrete watchtowers.

michael barbaro

Eric Schmitt covers national security for The Times.

eric schmitt

And the special forces in their camouflage gear, their helmets, dark sunglasses, have been moving in, trying to prevent conflict from spilling over into this very dangerous area. But then suddenly, on Monday morning, about two dozen of these troops just suddenly walked off the job, leaving the villagers there puzzled as to what had happened. Why did these soldiers, these American soldiers, leave without any kind of notice?

michael barbaro

Right. It’s not every day that an encampment of American troops just leaves without explanation.

eric schmitt

No. Not at all — and so the big question was what had happened? Nobody really knew.

michael barbaro

So what did happen? What explains why these troops essentially walked off base?

eric schmitt

Well, what had happened is —

archived recording Late last night, the White House announced that U.S. troops are beginning a withdrawal.

eric schmitt

— the night before, President Trump had ordered them to leave.

archived recording There’s a lot of disappointment here at the Pentagon this morning. U.S. officials tell me they were completely blindsided by the White House order to pull U.S. forces from northern Syria.

eric schmitt

And basically —

archived recording This is a major shift with the potential for major national security implications.

eric schmitt

— it betrayed a key ally in the region. And it threatened to imperil many of the counterterrorism gains that the United States had made over the last couple of years and hand a moral victory, if not an actual territorial victory, to some of the United States’s key enemies in the region.

michael barbaro

So Eric, I wonder if you could just step way back and explain the dynamics here, the forces at play, and how we get to this decision by President Trump. What exactly is going on here?

eric schmitt

At the heart of this is really the Kurds. This is a stateless people. And they represent a significant minority in the southeastern part of Turkey. And Turkey sees them as a terrorist group within their own country.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm.

eric schmitt

But the Kurds are also a very important ally, or at least some of the Kurds are. In Syria, they’re a key ally to the United States in its fight against the Islamic State in that area. The problem for the United States is how to balance these two partners. One, the stateless entity, Kurds, who are terrific fighters, who prove their mettle in basically kicking ISIS out of northeastern Syria, but are the archenemy of the Turks. The Turks, however, are a longtime, decades-old NATO ally that the United States relies on and has relied on for a long time. It forms a very essential part of security in the region. And the problem for the United States? They’re caught in the middle of this, trying to manage them both to keep them from clashing, which would undermine many of the national security goals the United States has in the region.

michael barbaro

So the Kurds and the Turks are sworn enemies. But they are both allies of the United States. So what has been the U.S. policy for navigating those tensions?

eric schmitt

The United States has tried to distinguish between the Kurds who are in Turkey and the Kurds who are in northeastern Syria fighting on behalf of the United States. Turkey, however, continues to believe this is a fiction. Kurds are Kurds. They’re all enemies of Turkey.

michael barbaro

Hmm.

eric schmitt

And they’ve pushed the United States to let them come after Kurds in Northern Syria. The United States said no, no, lay off. Leave them alone. And up to now, the Turks have basically had to honor that. They haven’t dared challenge the United States military that’s there. So as long as American troops are there, the sense is that this conflict will not actually blow up. The U.S. will somehow kind of keep everybody in their corners. That’s right. And that’s the way it had been up until last December.

archived recording (donald trump) There will be a strong, deliberate and orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria — very deliberate, very orderly.

eric schmitt

In December, President Trump ordered all 2,000 American forces in Syria out, immediately.

archived recording Immediately, you had the Turkish defense minister talking about massacring the Syrian Kurds, which the Turkish government views as terrorists.

eric schmitt

These are the same forces that had been protecting the Syrian Kurds. And suddenly, the U.S. was just walking away, basically leaving them at the mercy of the Turkish army. And this withdrawal triggered outrage.

archived recording (marco rubio) We in this Congress, and we as a nation, are going to be dealing with the consequences of it for years to come.

eric schmitt

Not only among Democrats, but among Republicans, among allies who were totally blindsided by the president’s announcement.

archived recording (lindsey graham) This is a disaster in the making. All of his military advisers have said we need to leave troops in Syria to work with the Kurds.

eric schmitt

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, angry that the allies had been blindsided by the president’s lack of consultation with this decision, resigned in protest.

archived recording In his letter of resignation to Mr. Trump, Secretary Mattis wrote that he was leaving because, quote, “you have a right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours.”

michael barbaro

And Eric, what about the Kurds? What was their reaction to the U.S. starting to draw down these troops and seemingly start to walk away from them?

eric schmitt

Well, you can imagine they were furious. This was an ally, they thought, that was standing beside them, that had stood beside them for years now against Turkey. And suddenly, without any notice at all, they were going to lose their buffer.

michael barbaro

So despite this backlash, does President Trump move forward with this decision to pull back the troops?

eric schmitt

Well, yes and no. Here’s what’s interesting. The president basically overruled all his national security advisers, who couldn’t believe this had happened. But what happened next was over the next several months, the aides tried to figure out a way to slow down the withdrawal, to mitigate its effects so there wouldn’t be this very abrupt pullout of American troops on the ground in Syria.

michael barbaro

Because they essentially disagreed with it or thought that the pace the president outlined was unproductive?

eric schmitt

That’s right. The trick was how do you do this without the boss knowing about it and getting angry that his orders aren’t being followed? So by late March, the force had come down to about 1,000 troops. And then the military’s plan was basically to pause there rather than to continue further and just not talk about it a whole lot, hoping the president wouldn’t focus on the extent to which the American military was continuing its operations there. And always telling him, whenever he asked, that we are on a plan to draw down. And they were. They were eventually going to do it. They just maybe weren’t going to do it at the pace that the president initially thought about.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm. So what exactly were the remaining troops actually doing there?

eric schmitt

The troops were doing three main things. First, they remained that buffer that we talked about before, between the Turkish military and its Kurdish allies. That was constant.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm.

eric schmitt

The second thing they were doing was to help enable the Syrian Kurdish forces carry out counterterrorism operations. Because by this summer, and even up till just recently, ISIS was starting to make a comeback in Syria. So the U.S. still needed these Kurdish fighter networks on the ground to carry out raids and missions to disrupt or capture and kill some of these terrorists.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm.

eric schmitt

The third thing they needed the Syrian Kurds to do was continue to detain some 11,000 ISIS fighters that had been captured in the previous battles. And these were held in makeshift prisons, sometimes old schools, warehouses. They weren’t very secure. And so the American military came in and helped put bars on windows and things like that.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm.

eric schmitt

So the U.S. needs those Kurdish jailers, if you will, to hold on to these guys. And that’s a huge concern.

michael barbaro

O.K. So these sound like crucial U.S. objectives. And I assume that among the U.S. troops carrying them out are these soldiers who walked off these posts over the weekend. So how did we get from America committed to carrying out those three missions to these soldiers leaving those posts?

eric schmitt

Well, meanwhile, as the U.S. has been doing its job, Turkey is agitating more and more on its side. You have to remember that Turkey has absorbed hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees over the past several years because of the civil war in Syria. And for President Erdogan, they’re becoming increasingly a political liability. So as he looks across the border, he not only sees his archenemy, the Kurds, who he wants to push back, he also sees an opportunity to carve out an enclave just across the border where he would be able to put hundreds of thousands of these Syrian refugees so they’re no longer his problem — they’re back in Syria. The problem is this territory he’s eyeing is controlled by the Syrian Kurds and their American allies.

michael barbaro

Hmm.

eric schmitt

So by the beginning of August, he’s threatening to take matters into his own hand and says, I’m just going to invade and unilaterally carve out this district. The Americans say, whoa, wait a minute. Let’s work this out. They’re very worried about any kind of unilateral Turkish operation that pushes deep into Syrian Kurdish territory, that could provoke a clash with these Syrian Kurdish allies they have on the ground, which could imperil U.S. counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State, because the Kurdish allies would be off fighting the Turks. And it could also jeopardize the security of several jails that the Syrian Kurds are holding thousands of ISIS fighters. The Americans fear the worst about what could happen if they don’t head this off.

michael barbaro

So it might not just hurt the Kurds. It might prompt the Kurds to become distracted by a war with an invading Turkish army and suddenly no longer be jailing these ISIS fighters. Suddenly, there’s an even bigger problem, which is thousands of ISIS fighters who might be on the run.

eric schmitt

Exactly. And that would be a big, big problem for the United States, one they were trying to avoid — until Sunday.

[music]

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back. So Eric, what actually happens on Sunday?

eric schmitt

Well, Erdogan is tired of waiting. So he goes around this process that’s been developed by his own generals and by the American commanders, as well. And he arranges a call with President Trump on Sunday. And at the end of this call, he tells the president, I’m going to invade northern Syria, just like I’ve been threatening to do. And the president, President Trump, basically says, O.K., and gives him the green light.

archived recording In a statement from the press secretary, the Trump administration says that, quote, “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into northern Syria. The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation.” And —

michael barbaro

Why would that be? Why would President Trump concede so quickly and so completely to Erdogan, given that he is outlining a unilateral invasion across the border?

eric schmitt

Well, President Trump has always chafed having American troops tied up in these foreign entanglements. So even though his top national security advisers tell him it’s important, in his gut, he wants to get out of these commitments, particularly after he’s already declared that the United States has won over ISIS. They’ve defeated ISIS, at least territorially.

archived recording (donald trump) We have won against ISIS. We’ve beaten them. And we’ve beaten them badly. We’ve taken back the land. And now it’s time for our troops to come back home.

eric schmitt

So that’s one reason. But the other reason is we believe that Erdogan, as he’s suggested before, told Trump that he could take care of this terrorist problem, whatever remains of it in that part of Syria. And that has an appeal for Trump, because Trump has complained that it costs a lot of money to help arm and equip these Kurdish fighters. And it costs a lot of money to help improve these makeshift jails that they’re holding all these ISIS fighters in, fighters that European allies won’t take back. And Trump gets very frustrated. And he says so in the White House statement on Sunday night.

archived recording Well, it was a late-night statement released by the White House. They went on to point the finger at some European nations, such as Germany and France, saying that many of these captured ISIS fighters came from there, the U.S. statement saying that European countries refused to take them back. So the U.S. taxpayer will no longer be paying for U.S. forces to be in that vicinity. But let’s just take a look —

michael barbaro

But, of course, what it sounds like Erdogan probably didn’t say was that what he’s told President Trump he will be doing will give him a chance to seek something he has long, long wanted, which is a chance to go after the Syrian Kurds who are America’s allies.

eric schmitt

That’s right. And it’s that fear — that the United States would not only no longer support the Kurds, but would step back and let the Turkish army pour across the border and slaughter one of its most loyal partners in the fight against ISIS over the last several years — that triggered outrage, even among the president’s most loyal Republican supporters.

archived recording (brian kilmeade) What a disaster. I mean, the president’s statement through Stephanie Grisham is the caliphate is destroyed. We would not have done that without the Kurds, who did all of our fighting. Now we’re saying, O.K., Turks. Go wipe them out, or force them out. What kind of message is that to the next ally that wants to side with us? Meanwhile — archived recording (lindsey graham) The Kurds stepped up when nobody else would to fight ISIS. If we abandon them, good luck getting anybody to help America in the future with radical Islam, Al Qaeda and ISIS. archived recording I just spoke to a Kurdish official. He said the Americans have betrayed us. They have opened the door for a Turkish massacre. We are no longer able to fight against ISIS. ISIS might return to the region. And the only one responsible, if that happens, will be the Americans. They are —

eric schmitt

Even Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, said other hostile powers in the region would also benefit from this. The Russians, the Iranians, the Assad regime in Syria would all be able to take advantage of this power vacuum with the pulling back of the United States.

michael barbaro

But despite everything you just said, President Trump is clearly compelled by what Turkey’s president said to him over the phone this past weekend. So does Erdogan have credibility when he makes an argument that Turkey can take care of all the things that the Kurds have been doing for the U.S.? Can Turkey actually do any of that?

eric schmitt

No. It’s really hard to believe that Turkish security services, the military, which have had trouble dealing with terrorists in their own country, can carry out an operation in northeastern Syria and take on the ISIS guerrilla networks there. At the same time, presumably, they’d also be fighting Syrian Kurds who are trying to hold on to their homeland. So the argument that Turkey can handle the counterterrorism mission in the northeastern part of the country is really a stretch. But that’s kind of music to the president’s ears.

michael barbaro

Why?

eric schmitt

Somebody else is going to take over the burden. We’re pulling back. And ultimately, his message is, as he’s said before, we’re pulling out altogether. That’s the goal. That’s his goal, at least.

michael barbaro

Eric, you cover the military. You think a lot about U.S. national security. How much does that philosophy from President Trump, how much does that diverge from the dominant view of U.S. foreign policy?

eric schmitt

Well, it really flies in the face of nearly two decades’ worth of experience since September 11th. That you need at least a small residual counterterrorism force, whether it’s a combination of military, C.I.A., to combat extremists who pose a threat to the United States and to American interests around the world. It doesn’t have to be a large force, as the United States has demonstrated in northeastern Syria right now. But to pull out altogether and basically wait for the threat of an attack against the United States, that’s not the thinking now. The thinking now is strangle that threat where it lies.

michael barbaro

So Eric, what happens now to the Kurds? What do you expect will be their fate over the next couple weeks and months?

eric schmitt

So for the Kurds who’ve always been a stateless people, they’ve needed a sponsor, this is truly a dark day. If they’re stripped of their American protection, they obviously face the daunting task of having to confront a Turkish invasion, military invasion. ISIS would probably be emboldened. ISIS would probably attack. So they’d be fighting on at least two fronts. Then you’d have these foreign powers who would be trying to press in for the resources that are in the territory they control. So the Kurds are really in a bad spot if the Americans withdraw completely. But there’s also a broader message to American allies around the world. And that is, just how good is the American word? No matter how valiant an ally or partner you might be, this episode underscores you might end up like the Kurds one day. You may end up abandoned.

[music]

michael barbaro

Eric, thank you very much.

eric schmitt

Thank you.

michael barbaro