Trump's Betrayal of the Kurds

by Felix Johnson

President Trump’s recent foreign policy escapades have brought worries to many in the Middle East, and suffering to others. He blatantly abandoned a long-time ally, the Kurds, who had taken up the brunt of the fighting against ISIS in the region, with the US taking a minor role, and alternative forces caught up in the Syrian conflict. His decision to withdraw troops from operation in the region has given Turkey the long-awaited go-ahead to move in and quash the Kurds who they have viewed as troublesome for a long time, despite their contributions to peace in the area. Trump himself has said that withdrawal was not intended to give Turkey a green-light to assault the Kurds, tweeting, ‘if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey’, without of course specifying what was off-limits. Despite this, there has been no response to the beginning of a Turkish offensive against the Kurds, which also resulted in the escaping of hundreds of captured IS prisoners, and has forced 13,000 from their homes within half a week. 

This striking reversal of policy is even said to have taken White House advisers by surprise. Trump’s flouting of his spontaneous and ad-libbed foreign policy has once more worried allies in the region, who fear that they may be unable to count on continued American support. Saudi Arabia, however, has little to worry about,  with Trump deploying more troops and equipment to the kingdom in an apparent bid to deter supposed Iranian aggression. His rationale for pulling support for the Kurds was that he aimed to stop US involvement in endless wars (despite the fact that withdrawal will lead to more conflict and likely future need for US troops to return), and also that the Kurds didn’t fight with the US in World War II. Luckily for him, he specifies a lack of Kurdish presence at Normandy, as Kurds did in fact fight in World War II, though to a limited extent, what with their oppression by numerous countries who they had been officially made a part of. One may also ask, if a key criterion for being worthy of US support is to have aided them in WWII, why Israel receives over $10m per day in military aid.