What's happening in northern Syria and whose talking points are what?

The political Twitterverse this weekend was buzzing about Hillary Clinton's strange, insinuated-but-clear accusation that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is some kind of tool of the Russian government.

I have big reservations about Gabbard as a politician. Her continuing friendliness to Hindu fundamentalism and her apparent Islamophobia add up to what looks too much like a "War on Terror" foreign policy orientation for my liking.

But if you're going to accuse someone of being a Russian agent or puppet or something similar, whether directly or by heavy-handed insinuation, you should be able to point to something more substantial than some foreign policy position that may not be in direct opposition to the Russian government's position of the moment. And since we know from what's in the public record about Russian political propaganda efforts in US elections that they try to spread confusion on all sides, it's likely that every member of Congress takes some political position that Russian bots propagate to someone on some platform.

The spread of political ideas and philosophies has never been limited to official political boundaries. And all of foreign policy from whatever ideological viewpoint involves with making choices about which other nations' political positions one approves or wants to work with and those one prefers to oppose. Every international treaty is a formal recognition of shared positions by the participating nations on the subject of the treaty.

That's why I find myself asking questions like this into the Twitter chaos:

When we are talking about direct violations of American election law, such as the one documented in the now infamous summary of President Trump's call with the Ukrainian President released by Trump's own White House, that really is pretty straightforward. Dubious business and financial arrangements, domestic as well as foreign, and self-dealing in violation of the Emoluments Clause, are real issues for the Trump family. (And the Bush family, too!)

In Hillary Clinton pushes theory that Russia is "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard — who hits back on Twitter Salon 10/18/2019, Igor Derysh writes, "CNN commentator Bakari Sellers declared that Gabbard is the 'antithesis' of what the Democratic field stands for and claimed 'there is no question that Tulsi Gabbard … is a puppet for the Russian government'." One would hope that people making such a charge can show more than vague suspicions to back that up.

On the other hand, lazy thinking about foreign policy is lazy thinking, whatever country's momentary position may happen to correlate with it.

That struck me in this commentary on the current crisis in northern Syria from Maximilian Popp. He's one of the authors of a story in the current print addition of Der Spiegel (43:2019), "Der Machtwechsel". According to him,  Vladimir Putin now personally controls Syria. Popp gives a video commentary in Europas Versagen, that indulges in some surprisingly simplistic assumptions. Am I exaggerating? Here is my transcript and English translation from the German:

Eigentlich ist der Krieg jetzt für Assad und für allem auch für Putin gewonnen. Der Westen hat kapituliert, die USA ist zurückgezogen, die Europäer spielen ohnehin keine Rolle. Die Autokraten, spricht Putin, Assad und Tayyip Erdoğan teilen Syrien jetzt unter sich auf.

Bis vor eine Woche, bis vor dem Einmarsch der Türkei in Nordösten Syriens, kontrolliert die YPG, also die Kurden, ein Drittel syrischen Staatgebietes. And da sie war mit den USA verbündet waren, kann man sagen auch die USA hatten eine gewisse Kontrolle über diese Region. Das gilt jetzt nicht mehr. Die Kurden haben um sich vor Erdoğan zu schützen, Assad zurück zu Hilfe [gerufen?].

Assads Truppen sind einmarschiert, damit ist das Projekt der kurdischen Selbstverwaltung gescheitert. Und Assad ist wieder am Ruder, kann aber allein nicht regieren. Er ist abhängig von Putin, seiner Schutzmacht. Putin ist der eigentliche Herrscher über Syrien, und in Wahrheit passiert in Syrien was Putin will.

Das gilt für Assad aber auch für Erdoğan. Der Erdoğan bekommt seine Pufferzone, die er auch mit dieser Invasion anstrebte nur dann wenn Putin es zulässt. ...

Dann man muss sich erinnern, Assad ist der, wurde ich sagen, schlimmste Diktator, größte Massenmörder, des 21.Jahrhunderts. Und mit Hilfe Putins, und mit Hilfe einer rücklosen Kriegführung, eine Reihe von Kriegsverbrechen, ist den Beide gelungen, ihrer Macht zu konsolidieren. Assad ist jetzt stärker als je zuvor. Und das ist ein Trauerspiel, das ist eine Tragödie für die Menschen Syrien, aber auch alle die an Demokratie, Rechtstaatlichkeit und Gerechtigkeit glauben. [meine Hervorhebungen]

[In fact, the war is now won for Assad and, above all, for Putin. The West has capitulated, the US has withdrawn, the Europeans are not playing a role anyway. The autocrats, Putin, Assad and Tayyip Erdoğan are now dividing Syria among themselves.

Until a week ago, before Turkey invaded northern Syria, the YPG, i.e. the Kurds, controlled a third of Syria's territory. And since it was allied with the US, one can say the US also had some control over this region. That is no longer the case. The Kurds have called Assad back to help in order to protect themselves from Erdoğan.

Assad's forces have invaded, so the project of Kurdish self-government has failed. And Assad is back at the helm, but cannot govern alone. He is dependent on Putin, his protective power. Putin is the real ruler of Syria, and the truth is that what Putin wants is happening in Syria.

This applies to Assad, but also to Erdoğan. Erdoğan will get his buffer zone, which he sought with this invasion, only if Putin allows it. ...

Then you have to remember, Assad is the, I would say, the worst dictator, the greatest mass murderer, of the 21st century. And with the help of Putin, and with the help of a ruthless brand of warfare, a series of war crimes, both have succeeded in consolidating their power. Assad is stronger than ever. And this is a tragedy for the people of Syria, but also for all those who believe in democracy, the rule of law and justice.] {my emphasis}

The idea that the US had a certain amount of control over the self-administered Kurdish area prior to Trump greenlighting Turkey's invasion is probably a bit of a stretch. The US troops were there as a material sign that the US policy was for both Assad and Turkey to not attack the Kurds.

But Putin is the real ruler of Syria? This is fantasy land. As the Spiegel article reports, Russia has also been playing a complicated diplomatic-military game involving Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds. There are a lot of things that can go wrong. Syria has reportedly agreed with the Kurdish YPG to attack the Islamist-fundamentalist anti-Assad rebels in Erbil province, which can easily exacerbate the refugee problem for Turkey and potentially Europe. Erdoğan is scheduled to meet with Putin in Moscow this week. (Turkey's Erdogan to travel to Russia for talks with Putin Aljazeera 10/18/2019)

Russia has an economy around the size of Italy's. Its military budget is reportedly a little more than that of Germany and France combined. Their occupation of Crimea and support for separatists in Ukraine is straining their resources. They have a quite a long border with China, with whom they currently have peaceful relations but they also know they have to be prepared to defend that border. Yes, Russia has nuclear weapons, and the whole world urgently needs to take nuclear nonproliferation and arms reduction much more seriously.

But political commentators need to look at maps sometimes. Does it look like Syria is closer to the US or to Russia? EU and NATO members Greece and Bulgaria are kind of close. Greece, Italy, and other EU nations are affected by the massive refugee crisis the Syrian civil war has caused. So is Turkey, which is Syria's direct neighbor and a NATO member.

But whatever regional security interests Russia perceives that require involving itself in the multiple conflicts in Syria, it's certainly not controlling events there. The far more economically and militarily powerful United States found that remaking Iraq, Syria, and even Iran according to its liking - the dream of the neocons backing the disastrous Iraq War - has turned out to be remarkably complicated.

And when it comes to identifying what "Russian talking points" are, the current Syria-Turkey-Kurdish situation offers quite a few possibilities. The Russians have provided aid to the Kurds, and the Syrians who are supported by Russia are also teaming with the Russians to attack the Islamist anti-Assad rebels in Idlib. That may not entirely please currently Russia-friendly Turkey, which has provided support for just such anti-Assad rebels in the past. Plus, Russia-friendly Turkey is currently invading Russia-friendly Syria in violation of international law which all United Nations members including the US recognize as legitimate. Turkey is a NATO ally of the US. And the Kurds were informal US allies two weeks or so ago.

So I'm pretty sure that someone can be pro- or anti-Assad, pro- or anti-Turkey, pro- or anti-Kurds, pro- or anti- the anti-Assad rebels in Idlib that may be pro-Turkey and/or pro-US or used to be, and still manage to be using Russian, Turkish, Kurdish, US, and/or Syrian talking points at the same time.

And at the same time you might find yourself also agreeing with an awful guy like Pat Buchanan. And maybe disagreeing at the same time, too. (Is Putin Really the New King of the Middle East? The American Conservative 10/18/2019)

Also, a week from now, there could be a whole set of new talking points.

It's not an argument for ignoring the Syrian situation just because it's complicated. It's important for Americans, not least because it seems for the moment to have raised the possibility of actually impeaching Trump and remove him from office. I'm just saying we shouldn't be relying or dumb or simplistic assumptions about it. Unless you're Donald Trump, in which case you really can't make any different kind of assumptions.

American interests in Syria and the Turkish invasion

"Even when Trump has good instincts - such as his desire to 'get out of the nation-building business' and avoid an open-ended U.S. commitment in places such as Afghanistan or Syria - his impulsive approach to decision-making leads him to implement those instincts in the worst possible way, with neither adequate preparation or sufficient regard for the longer-term consequences." -Stephen Walt, Welcome to Trump's Impeachment Foreign Policy Foreign Policy

The fiasco currently unfolding with the Turkish invasion of Syria is a prime example of this. A long-term direct US military presence to protect a quasi-independent Kurdish state would not have been a desirable or practical thing. But given the role that the Kurdish local government and military forces played in fighting ISIS in conjunction with the United States, and given how Kurds there have been targeted by their enemies in Turkey and in Syria, the Kurdish areas should have probably been the last place from which to withdraw US troops from Syria.

A major complication in the situation is that Turkey is a NATO ally of the US. So the US does have to pay attention to (actually legitimate) security concerns of Turkey, including those related to armed attacks from Kurdish forces.

But NATO is a defensive alliance, not an alliance to support Turkey invading Syria. And certainly not an alliance to support Turkey carrying out an ethnic cleansing operation against the Kurds in Syria. NATO is supposed to defend legitimate borders, not encourage its members to violate them. (And, yes, that applies to the US-British-French intervention in Libya in 2011, approved by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary, an action that is still producing destructive consequences.)

It's worth recalling that the NATO alliance does not automatically obligate a member nation to support a military action of one member state. And certainly not in an illegal war of aggression. In this case, the NATO countries including the US should be pressuring Turkey to withdraw from Syria.

Given that larger context, this piece by Paul Pillar provides an unsentimental look at US interests in Syria, Donald Trump's Syria Withdrawal: Are We Asking the Right Questions? The National Interest 10/09/2019:

The reported procedure through which Trump reached the decision is hard to defend. It appeared to be an impulsive act, reached after a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that was not vetted through the relevant policy bureaucracy and caught much of that bureaucracy by surprise. Such a broken method of presidential decision-making has produced bad policy in the past (not just in the current administration) and will continue to produce bad policy in the future as long as Trump uses it. But the procedure is not the same as the substance. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Or, in Rick Perry's famous formulation, it's right once a day. Which is a better analogy for the Trump Presidency.

Pillar goes on to describe some of the practical, power-politics realities:

[T]he Kurds did not do what they did on the battlefield as an act of generosity to the United States. Trump captured only a portion of what needs to be noted in this regard with his tweet saying that the Kurds were “paid massive amounts of money and equipment” for their fighting. The Kurds also had a direct interest in defeating ISIS, and they have been playing they own political-military game regarding their relationship with Syrian Arabs. [my emphasis]

He emphasizes this point, which surely weighs heavily in the NATO leaders' view of the situation:

A direct organizational connection links the Kurdish militia in the region in question, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), to the Turkish Kurdish resistance movement, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has spilled much Turkish blood over more than three decades through international terrorism and insurgency in southeastern Turkey. Americans who are quick to condemn anyone with the slightest “link” to anti-U.S. terrorist groups would be just as hardline toward the Syrian Kurds if placed in Erdogan’s situation. [my emphasis]

The PKK wasn't the only group with "links" to terrorists. The US has also provided aid to some Sunni fundamentalist military groups opposed to the Alawite government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war.

Pillar also argues on the question of the larger US troop presence in Syria:

ISIS is not out even if it is down, but with the physical caliphate erased from the map, the remaining counterterrorist tasks are not primarily ones that troops on the ground can accomplish. They tend to be more ones in which a foreign military presence is more of a provocation than a help. Any possible resurrection of the caliphate would be at least as much a matter for the Syrian regime and other players in the immediate vicinity to tackle as it would be for the United States. [my emphasis]

Damage from the Turkish invasion of Syria spreads quickly

The Turkish invasion of Syria is a seriously bad development with potentially far-reaching implications, none of them likely to be especially good for ordinary people in the area in the immediate future.

Bel Trew reports for The Independent (Syrian regime troops enter Kurdish territory after deal aimed at pushing back Turkish offensive as US signals full withdrawal 10/14/2019):

Syrian government forces have entered several towns in the Kurdish-held areas of northern Syria for the first time in five years, as they advance on Turkish forces in the country, after striking a deal with the Kurds to halt Ankara’s offensive.

According to Syria’s state news agency, SANA, regime troops moved into Kurdish-held Tabqa town in Raqqa province, once home to the capital of the Isis caliphate.

Much attention has rightly been focused on Trump's cynical abandonment of the Kurds, who just a week ago were still US allies.

But part of the risk of US involvement in Syria was that there was a risk of military clashes between the US and its NATO ally Turkey.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan has been distancing his country from NATO in various ways, including controversial purchases of Russian weapons. (Tim Lister, Turkey bought Russian S-400 missiles designed to down NATO planes. For the US, that's a problem CNN 07/13/2019)

Susanne Güsten provides this background information ("Pfiler unter Stress" Internationale Politik Sept/Okt 2019; translation from the German original is mine), of which the Cheney-Bush Administration's misbegotten Iraq War is a significant part:

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, little changed [in the relationship between NATO and Turkey]. It was only when Erdogan's AKP party came to power 17 years ago that a fundamental reassessment began. A first sticking point was the then US administration's plans for a war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Turkey, which quite rightly feared a catastrophe for the entire region, refused to follow the US and refused to allowed American troops be be stationed [in Turkey] for the attack. In these years, a growing distrust of Turkey developed in the US, and a new foreign policy self-image developed in Ankara, which was radically different from the traditional self-view of [Turkey as] the "aircraft carrier" [for the US].

The driving force behind Turkey's change of course was Erdogan's foreign policy adviser, the later foreign minister and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. He defined Turkey as an independent regional power with its own interests, which may well differ from those of the West. Especially in Syria, the Turkish-American contrasts sharpened more and more. Washington supports the Kurdish militia YPG and its political parent organization, the PYD, the main U.S. partners in the fight against the so-called Islamic State. Turkey is hostile to the YPG and the PYD because they are the Syrian operatives of the terrorist organization PKK. For the US, however, the fight against the Islamic State was more important than the Turkish government's threat scenarios. [my emphasis]

That was, of course, written before Trump greenlighted the current Turkish invasion and apparent ethnic cleansing against the Kurds.

Aljazeera provides this reverse chronology of the Turkish invasion, Turkey's military operation in Syria: All the latest updates.