A campaign promise or strategic mistake?

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Soldiers at a staging area for the Turkish Armed Forces in the Turkish town of Akcakale along the border with the Syrian town of Tall Abyad. (Photo by Anas Alkharboutli/picture alliance via Getty Images)

This week the U.S. withdrew forces from northern Syria, allowing Turkey to wage a military offensive against the region's Syrian Kurdish fighters. Is President Trump fulfilling a campaign promise to reduce military entanglements, or abandoning a key ally in the mission to eradicate ISIS?

Online and offline, Hudson experts are debating Turkey's actions and the risks of a U.S. pullback from Syria. Below, find some of their key arguments, and join us next Tuesday [[link removed]] as Hudson experts Blaise Misztal and Michael Doran go head-to-head on the issue.

Campaign Promise or Strategic Mistake?

Hudson experts weigh in on the considerations surrounding a U.S. pullback from Syria :

Blaise Misztal [[link removed]] on Turkey's track record, in The Daily Caller [[link removed]]:

"The president’s motivation was the failure of U.S. allies to share the burden of stabilizing northern Syria and deal with thousands of ISIS prisoners. This is a real problem. But the solution, to entrust this task to Turkey, only makes it worse. Under Erdogan, Turkey became a jihadi highway for ISIS recruits, it supplied weapons to al Qaeda affiliated groups, jailed Americans, including Pastor Andrew Brunson, and bought Russian weapons. Erdogan is no friend to America and it is naïve to believe he will protect U.S. interests in Syria rather than recklessly pursue his own, whatever the cost for the U.S."

Doug Feith [[link removed]] on Russia's Syria strategy, from the new report " The Eastern Mediterranean in the New Era of Major-Power Competition: Prospects for U.S.-Israeli Cooperation [[link removed]]"

"Russia has aggressively taken advantage of the power vacuum created by America’s 'pivot' policy. It intervened heavily in Syria’s civil war and for its decisive military support to Assad, Russia was rewarded with control over upgraded military bases in Syria – the Tartus naval base and the Khmeimim air base. From those bases Russia can project power into the Middle East and is positioned to execute an area-denial strategy against the United States."

Michael Doran [[link removed]]on the Turkish perspective, in The Wall Street Journal [[link removed]]:

"The purchase of the S-400s and the pressure Mr. Erdoğan is placing on U.S. forces in northern Syria provide a way to demonstrate to the broader Turkish public his willingness to defy Washington for its shabby treatment of Turkey and to restore the balance of power between Turkey and the PKK, which American policy inadvertently overturned."

Walter Russell Mead [[link removed]] on cross-Administration similarities, in The Wall Street Journal [[link removed]]:

"President Obama made a similar, and similarly hasty, decision in 2013 when he chose not to respond to Syria’s violation of his chemical weapons 'red line' with a military strike. Mr. Trump’s Syria decision may also prove to be a mistake, but it should give the establishment pause that two presidents as different as Messrs. Obama and Trump reached similar conclusions about the political risks in the Middle East."

Nina Shea [[link removed]] on how the withdrawal could impact Christians and Yazidis, in Yahoo News [[link removed]]:

"Christians and Yazidis (another ancient religious minority also targeted for ISIS genocide) are no longer protected. This could be the final blow to the 2,000-year-old Christian presence in that region, as those communities across the Middle East watch with horror and conclude that there is no place for them in the Middle East, that their only hope for a future is in the West."

Quotes have been edited for length and clarity

Minorities in Erdogan's Turkey

Kurds comprise of 20 percent of Turkey’s population, but the country is also home to Arabs, Circassians, Georgians, and Albanians, among others. Aykan Erdemir, a Hudson contributor, examines the Turkish government’s four-prong approach towards ethnic and religious minorities in the latest Current Trends in Islamist Ideology [[link removed]]:

Scapegoating of, and incitement against, minorities to mobilize the electorate, solidify the ranks of loyalists, and strengthen majoritarian hegemony at home.Propagating conspiracy theories about minorities to divert the Turkish public’s attention from the government’s policy failures.Performing acts of neo-Ottoman “benevolence” to portray the regime and its leadership as “tolerant” at home and abroad, while also highlighting and reinforcing sectarian hierarchies between the ruling majority and subject minorities. Implementing policies ranging from benevolent to nefarious toward minorities to ensure favorable treatment or to extract concessions in international relations. Read "Scapegoats of Wrath, Subjects of Benevolence: Turkey's Minorities Under Erdogan" [[link removed]]

Turkish State-Run Media and Minorities

An excerpt from Aykan Erdemir's " Scapegoats of Wrath, Subjects of Benevolence: Turkey's Minorities Under Erdogan [[link removed]]," illustrating how the Turkish government uses state-run television as anti-minority propaganda:

Historical dramas disseminating anti-minority conspiracy theories—funded by state-run or pro-government outlets—have become the most effective form of propaganda Erdogan. Turkey’s state-run media outlets scapegoat religious minorities, using state funds for incitement, particularly against Jews and Christians.

The most notorious example is Payitaht Abdülhamid The Last Emperor, a historical drama funded and broadcasted by Turkey’s state-run Turkish Radio Television, TRT. It is a blatantly anti-Semitic and anti-Christian series.

The villains in The Last Emperor bear a keen resemblance to all of the Turkish government’s bogeymen. In the show, Jewish conspiracies meld together with those of Britain and other European powers, the Catholic Church, socialists, Young Turks, and Freemasons. President Erdoğan himself often refers to such a grand conspiracy, overseen by a nebulous puppet-master he calls “the Mastermind.” In turn, “Mastermind” was the name of a documentary aired on a leading pro-government news channel, which, among other insights, “revealed” that Jews have dominated the world for the past 3,500 years.

Each episode of The Last Emperor has led to an upsurge in hate speech and incitement online. One Twitter user, after watching this state-funded drama, vowed to turn the territory between the Euphrates and Nile rivers into Jewish graveyards. Another Twitter user said, “The more I watch The Last Emperor, the more my enmity to Jews increases. You infidels, you filthy creatures.”

After the Syrian Pullback: What Next for U.S. Middle East Policy? [[link removed]]

On October 15, Hudson Institute will host a debate on the latest developments in Syria and Turkey, the impact on U.S. interests, and the future of U.S. Middle East policy. Hudson Senior Fellow Mike Doran will argue in favor of the president’s withdrawal, while Hudson Fellow Blaise Misztal and Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Mary Beth Long will present the counterargument that this move is detrimental to U.S. interests in the region.

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