Derek Nastasi
Controversy arose October 6th when president Donald Trump ordered American troops to pull out of north-eastern Syria who were in cooperation with Kurdish Forces manning an ISIS prison. Uproar in the media stems from fact that Turkey immediately invaded Syria and started attacking the Kurds, with Turkey commencing Operation Peace Spring, after the U.S. troops pulled out.
Many in opposition to Trump used the argument that he was abandoning an ally, the Kurds. However, as developments ensued, it would seem that there wasn't much of a choice. As of now this is probably one of the biggest issues in the news right now. I have dug up research to give background on the situation and reasoning behind the actions in an unbiased and factual way.
According to Military Times, what most likely prompted Trump to pull out was not due to him deciding to end never-ending wars but because President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Trump informing him about the military operation Turkey would be conducting and that they didn't want the U.S. to be caught in the crossfire. After Trump pulled out troops, the Turkish offensive began October 9th with Turkish airstrikes and artillery fire targeting the Kurdish-held or SDF(Syrian Dempocratic Forces) towns. According to the New York Times The White House has announced that they do not support this attack on the Kurds, furthermore they want to cease most involvement and had already stopped the funding of the Kurdish fighters of the SDF. This cutoff of aid was considered a betrayal by the SDF; however, it can be made sense of due to the fact that that would be arming the SDF against Turkey, a NATO ally of the U.S. To be clear, both Turkey and the Kurdish SDF are allies of the USA.
So many may ask,”Why is this happening or why does it even matter for the big picture?” So it all started when the Arab Spring protests, showing discontent for the Syrian government, started in 2011 started to gain traction and citizens called for Syrian prime minister Bashar Al-Assad’s removal from office. The violent suppression of these protests began the war fought by several factions. Not only did this war have many factions but unlike almost all of the wars it isn't a one side against the other it is a four-sided conflict. The Syrian government is fending off the attacks by various groups like the Interim Government of Syria,who is opposed to the current Syrian government, and the terrorist group ISIL who has interests against the Syrian government.
Also in the mix is the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces who want to push for democracy in Syria and who is in alliance with a U.S. led coalition to eliminate ISIS in the area. Turkey has been opposed to Syria for years prior and has been supporting the Syrian rebel groups. Recently however, Turkey has been against the proximity of the SDF at their border. If you know anything about any military alliance, in this case NATO(the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), usually if one country is involved they all might as well be involved.
However, now the tables have turned because not only is Turkey involved in the Syrian civil war but they are in conflict with a U.S. ally, the SDF. If something goes wrong, the US could be at war with Turkey and public opinion of our country to the UN could be at stake. This could even lead to a bigger war in the Middle East involving the U.S. and many Middle Eastern countries.
Operation Peace Spring has taken many lives but an estimate at this time would not be appropriate noting that it is an ongoing situation and more casualties most likely will come. The good news came on Oct. 17 when the Vice President Mike Pence announced that the U.S. and Turkey agreed to a deal which led to an agreement of a 120 hour ceasefire between Turkey and the SDF. However, this deal wasn't completely transparent with the U.S. and Turkey having different goals in mind. The U.S. looked for and expected military action to stop,according to the BBC, while according to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu,Turkey viewed the agreement as a temporary pause in military action to give the SDF enough time to evacuate from the safe zone and if that didn't happen the military action would continue.(NPR,Israel Times.) The Syrian Kurdish leader Salih Muslim Muhammad claimed that his people welcome the ceasefire but not a surrender according to The Guardian. Unfortunately the ceasefire was violated the next day with an unnamed U.S. official and the SDF accused Turkey of violating the ceasefire and the shelling of civilian areas of Ras-alAyn, one of the areas in dispute of the ceasefire agreement by Turkey and the SDF confirmed by CNN. According to the SOHR,Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, on October 19th, the SDF had not withdrawn from the zone despite the agreement to do so being passed 37hours prior, and that Turkey had violated the ceasefire with the Turkish Armed forces taking land of 934 square miles. In the days following, more and more violations of the ceasefire followed. However as bad as the direction of events seem, on October 24th, President Trump had announced that there will be a “permanent” ceasefire and that if that happens, trade sanctions on Turkey will be lifted. The situation is updating every day so more news could come about. The ceasefire may fall through as previously, or it could actually stick. Nevertheless, in the big scheme of things although this offensive may have ended the Syrian Civil War is still going on.