Trump Shift on Syria Leaves Bolton to Get Turkey to Play Along

Jan 08 2019, 5:01 AMJan 08 2019, 6:07 AMJanuary 08 2019, 5:01 AMJanuary 08 2019, 6:07 AM

(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump’s national security adviser will try to explain to Turkish leaders on Tuesday how the president’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria has morphed into a slower and complicated pullout with the prospect of an indefinite American footprint in the war-torn country.

Trump decided on the withdrawal during a call with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month. At first, he and his administration described a rapid removal of U.S. forces -- Islamic State, “my only reason for being there,” was defeated, Trump said, and troops would be sent “back home to be with their families.”

But since the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis and a bipartisan backlash in Congress, Trump has hit the brakes. On Sunday, National Security Adviser John Bolton said in Israel that American forces would remain in Syria until Islamic State is defeated, and that he would seek assurances from Turkey that it won’t attack allied Kurdish groups Erdogan’s government regards as terrorists after the U.S. withdraws.

Additionally, U.S. officials said that a base in southeast Syria, Al Tanf, will remain in American hands, and the U.S. will also maintain control of airspace over northern Syria.

“We are watching our Syria policy get revised in real time,” said Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “I would say that I welcome the caveats that we’ve seen expressed now by John Bolton. But the fact that we are improvising on our Syria policy right now is concerning.”

Bolton’s next stop is Ankara, where it’s not clear whether Erdogan himself will give him an audience. The national security adviser is expected to meet with Erdogan spokesman Ibrahim Kalin, according to two people familiar with the matter. Bolton will be joined by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford and James Jeffrey, the U.S. special representative for Syria engagement.

But by late Monday no further details on the U.S. schedule had been released, including a potential meeting with the Turkish president.

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, meanwhile, left for an eight-nation trip of his own to the Middle East on Monday. He said Turkey had made a commitment to Trump to fight Islamic State but also to protect the “people we fought with,” a reference to Kurdish fighters allied with the U.S. who did much of the work of fighting the militants.

“That’s why Ambassador Bolton is there later today or tomorrow to have a conversation there about how we will effectuate that in light of the U.S. withdrawal,” Pompeo said on CNBC.

Earlier: Trump Defends Syria Exit as Putin and Erdogan Fill a U.S. Void

Turkey has long pushed the U.S. to end its alliance with Kurdish YPG fighters and has threatened an offensive against the group, which it regards as an extension of separatists it’s battled at home for decades.

The Turkish government is willing to take up the fight against the remnants of Islamic State in Syria, but wants American air cover for its forces and the YPG to move aside, according to a person with direct knowledge of its plans who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

Erdogan described a lasting role for his country’s forces in Syria in an op-ed published in the New York Times on Monday. He proposed creating a “stabilization force featuring fighters from all parts of Syrian society” to “bring law and order to various parts of the country.”

“In this sense, I would like to point out that we have no argument with the Syrian Kurds,” he wrote.

And he proposed that after the U.S. withdraws, Turkish forces would conduct “an intensive vetting process” to reunite child soldiers he alleged are part of Kurdish militias with their families. “Under Turkey’s watch,” he wrote, areas of Syria controlled by the Kurds or Islamic State would be governed by “popularly elected councils.”

“Turkish officials with relevant experience will advise them on municipal affairs, education, health care and emergency services,” he wrote.

Asked about the shifting narratives surrounding a withdrawal from Syria, Pompeo told CNBC that while the U.S. planned to remove its 2,000 soldiers, the mission there “remains in full.”

And on Twitter Monday night, Trump remarked: Endless Wars, especially those which are fought out of judgement mistakes that were made many years ago, & those where we are getting little financial or military help from the rich countries that so greatly benefit from what we are doing, will eventually come to a glorious end!