Donald Trump's Syria troop withdrawal is an election strategy and an impeachment distraction

Updated

Donald Trump likes to tick boxes.

As 2020 closes in and he faces the challenge of re-election, you can bet he's looking to check off what he promised at all of those rowdy rallies in 2016.

Withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership. Tick. Leave the Paris Climate Agreement. Tick. Move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Tick. Reform tax policy. Tick. Stack the Supreme Court with conservatives. Tick. Slash federal regulations. Tick.

And so on.

Several of the President's promises are stalled — notably the building of the wall on the border with Mexico, the repeal and replacement of Obamacare and the renegotiation of the Iran nuclear deal.

Under deep domestic pressure amid the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry, and plainly frustrated and in need of a distraction, a phone call from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last weekend was timely.

After all, another of those core promises he made in 2016 was to extricate America from several "endless wars".

Trump has been planning this move for months

The President retreated back into his box after being shouted down when he announced plans to withdraw all US troops from Syria last December, but he's not easily diverted.

With the gruff, sensible defence secretary Jim Mattis out of the way (he quit after the December episode) Mr Trump reverted to part of his original plan.

"We're not fighting," he told reporters.

"We're policing to a large extent. At some point, we have to bring our people back home."

And on Twitter:

As far as the President was concerned, it was a simple case of pulling back 50 US special forces (or up to 150 according to US Defence sources).

In one hit, he created a distraction, appeased his base and made his ally, Turkey, happy — all the while saving the US a bit of military money.

But the President soon found himself having to qualify the decision by threatening to destroy Turkey's economy should it overstep and slaughter the Kurds, who have fought hand in hand with the Americans to defeat the Islamic State group.

However, less than 48 hours later, Turkey's President tweet-confirmed (yes this is how we communicate now) that a big attack on the Kurds was imminent.

And now the attack is well underway, Mr Trump seems to be thinking intervention may once again be an option:

Yep.

For once, Republicans aren't on board

The fate of the Kurds appears to be one of the dwindling pool of issues that transcend political lines.

If anything, Republicans spoke out more strongly about it than Democrats.

In a sign of just how gravely Republicans viewed the move, Trump devotee Lindsey Graham compared the President to conservatives' number one enemy.

"I heard this same argument from President Obama," he said in a primetime interview on the right-leaning talk show Fox & Friends.

"I expect an American president to do what is in our national security interest."

And Senator Graham was just one of those in Mr Trump's own party who spoke out against him.

In a rare rebuke, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell described the move as "precipitous," saying it would "only benefit Russia, Iran and the Assad regime".

High-ranking House member Liz Cheney described it all as "impossible to understand".

These days, it's pretty rare to find an issue the President and Republicans clash on, let alone one that elicits Obama comparisons.

After all, more than 80 per cent of Republican voters are happy with Mr Trump's leadership, so there's nothing to be gained for Republican members of Congress in being seen to disagree with him.

One theory as to why they felt free to speak out is that the issue isn't likely to make or break Mr Trump's re-election odds.

Foreign policy isn't front of mind for US voters

Ending the "forever wars" has been a Donald Trump catchcry, well, forever.

He told reporters this week that writing letters to the parents of soldiers killed on duty was "the hardest part of being President".

"I fully understand both sides of it. But I campaigned on the fact that I was going to bring our … soldiers home, and bring them home as rapidly as possible," he said.

But remember a majority of Republican voters — just like Republican politicians — were in favour of keeping troops in Syria to fight IS and to counterbalance the influence of the likes of Iran and Russia.

Several commentators have also flagged Mr Trump's previous business dealings in Turkey and his relationship with the Turkish President, who attended the opening of the Trump Towers office and residential development in Istanbul in 2012.

Hmmm.

Perhaps this was simply opportunistic on the President's part, given Mr Erdogan's stated intentions.

That said, poll after poll after poll also shows foreign policy is low on the list of voters' priorities, dwarfed by issues like the economy, health care and immigration.

At the 2020 election, voters will first and foremost be thinking about their wallets, their family's health, their neighbourhoods — not the unravelling of geopolitics in some far distant land.

So why tackle this one campaign promise?

Voters, faced with a choice between two candidates, will depend a lot on impressions and appearances.

As one former Trump campaign staffer told the Wall Street Journal:

"No-one expected a Washington politician to keep his promises on anything. When he does this, he's proving he's not a Washington politician."

But the campaign promise was fairly broad. Why go about tackling it in such a controversial way?

The US military presence in Syria is roughly 0.05 per cent of all active military operations, and it consumed roughly 0.5 per cent of the total defence budget, according to some experts.

Removing troops from Syria is relatively small potatoes in the overall goal of "bringing troops home".

And yet, although the Kurds are paying a heavy price, it's certainly enabled the President to retake control of the narrative.

The timing is key

The impeachment drama is moving faster than a bushfire, engulfing all media space along its path.

On Monday, a White House lawyer sent a letter to the House Democrats overseeing the impeachment inquiry, saying the Trump camp would refuse to cooperate.

On Wednesday, 2020 frontrunner Joe Biden, whose son's business deals started this inquiry in the first place, officially announced his support for impeachment.

And on Friday, two associates of Mr Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani were arrested at an airport, holding one-way tickets in an attempt to flee for what the FBI says is a serious violation of campaign finance laws.

Mr Trump is an expert at controlling the conversation. But he's being tested.

Topics: donald-trump, us-elections, world-politics, government-and-politics, united-states, turkey, syrian-arab-republic

First posted