Trump’s Syria withdrawal bravely puts America First, the establishment last
The foreign policy establishment is having a meltdown — and if you know anything about the last 20 years of U.S. history, then you know that means something good is happening.
President Trump set the swamp on fire with an early Monday morning tweetstorm announcing his decision to finally remove our troops from northern Syria. Reporting indicates that the president has given Turkey the go-ahead for their planned move into Syria, despite what this means for our allies, the Kurds.
BREAKING: In explaining his decision to pull back US military presence in northern Syria, President Trump tweets his view that "it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home."
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 7, 2019
The While House said @realDonaldTrump gave the Turkish President his blessing for his long-threatened military operation against elements of the Kurdish YPG militia that have been among America’s most effective partners in the fight against ISIS.https://t.co/yz86d5AaND
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 7, 2019
Cue the hawks’ hysteria.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Trump’s decision “virtually reassures the reemergence of ISIS” and called it “so sad” and “so dangerous.” Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida called the move a “grave mistake” and warned about the supposed consequences it will have worldwide.
Nightmare predictions aside, Trump has shown great bravery with this decision, given the inevitable vitriolic political backlash. The president campaigned on putting America first, and he’s fulfilling that promise to voters no matter how angry the establishment gets. His decision will stop risking American lives and wasting taxpayer dollars on policing Middle East politics. This is long overdue, seeing as our security goals in Syria have already been accomplished.
To recap, the U.S. military first intervened in the Syrian conflict in 2014. Our goal was to destroy the Islamic State Caliphate, as the terrorist group had built up territorial control of much of the conflict-ridden region.
Mission accomplished.
In 2015, ISIS controlled large amounts of territory in Syria and Iraq, a territory “roughly the size of Portugal,” according to CNN. As of February 2019, it controlled just 50 square miles of territory.
No, the terrorist group hasn’t been entirely eradicated, but it has been degraded to the point of insignificance. It’s time to declare victory and come home. A complete and total elimination of all terrorist capability anywhere was never a feasible goal. To demand such a utopia prior to withdrawal is a recipe for indefinite occupation of half the world.
And the costs of our continued world-policing are serious. Just in 2019, at least five American service members have died in Syria, not to mention the countless civilians we’ve killed without even intending to. Those hawks who wish to continue our indefinite involvement in Syria until some mythical time in which the Middle East is not a conflict zone ought to look at the family of the deceased soldier Michael Thomason in the eyes — he died in April — and tell his loved ones we are going to keep putting the lives of young men like him at risk to play policemen of the world. Moreover, our very limited involvement is Syria has cost taxpayers a minimum of $54 billion, according to the Brown University Cost of War Project. It’s time for American involvement in this disaster to come to an end.
I stand with @realDonaldTrump today as he once again fulfills his promises to stop our endless wars and have a true America First foreign policy.
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) October 7, 2019
Objections to Trump’s withdrawal take two forms, both worth taking seriously.
One school of critics predicts that in the absence of American military involvement, ISIS will make a comeback. This is a worthwhile concern, and worth taking seriously, seeing as something similar happened when former President Obama pulled troops out of Iraq in 2011.
But that’s not going to happen in Syria. As Trump rightly notes, an involved Turkey will have a strong security incentive not to allow ISIS to re-emerge. So too would regional neighbors such as Russia. And if a terrorism threat were to re-emerge, the U.S. does not need troops on the ground to step back in and fight it through remote strikes.
Think about it like this: Can we really justify endless occupation of a foreign country based on the idea that if we ever leave, a threat might emerge? That logic would have us occupy everywhere, all the time.
The other chief concern, as pointed out by my Washington Examiner colleague Tom Rogan, is that by pulling out, we will condemn our allies, the Kurds, to death at the hands of merciless Turkish forces.
Syria will continue to be a bloody disaster zone with deaths on all sides either way, and it may be true that leaving puts the Kurds in danger. But we should leave anyway. U.S. foreign policy exists to put America first, and we did not enter Syria or return to Iraq in order to establish a Kurdish state. We never promised the Kurds our ongoing protection or aid in a war of independence in northern Syria. Our own goals and interests should always dictate our military decisions. To risk U.S. lives to police the outcome of the Syrian conflict, which will continue to be extremely bloody no matter what, puts American interests last in a failed attempt to continue policing the world.
As Stand Together foreign policy expert and Afghanistan veteran William Ruger told me in a statement: “It is not America’s job to sort out the future of Syria. We were in Syria for a very limited reason — to eliminate ISIS’s territorial caliphate. We have accomplished that goal, so now it is time to bring our troops from that country home.”
Time to bring our troops home, indeed. President Trump is right to do so now, before more Americans lose their lives in yet another endless war in the Middle East.
In fact, the president shows great bravery to make a decision that will undoubtedly be so controversial that the entire foreign policy establishment will shriek in unison — even Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade blasted Trump this morning. With the establishment’s abysmal record in the Middle East, you know by their ire that Trump is on to something.
