The Many Problems with Erdogan's Plan for Syria

Adam Lammon

Security, Middle East

The notion of Erdogan as both anti-ISIS crusader and Syria-stabilizer is hard to swallow.

For Americans in favor of leaving Syria but with reservations about doing so, do not take solace in Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent op-ed in the New York Times, for it is insincere political theater masquerading as an olive branch. For after years of working at odds with U.S. policy goals in Syria, Erdogan wrote this treatise not to support U.S. objectives, but to capitalize on an unprecedented chance to shape northern Syria and the lives of the Kurds who live there to his liking. Erdogan is now on the cusp of achieving with words what he failed to do with arms: nearly uncontested influence over the Syrian lands nearest the Turkish border, another step to his desired neo-Ottoman Empire.

All this is thanks to President Donald Trump’s recent snap decision to withdraw U.S. military forces from Syria; an inevitable (and correct) outcome given that post–ISIS Syria is not a vital U.S. national security interest and there was never enough political will—under this administration or the previous one—to fight an open-ended conflict in Syria for goals with indeterminate outcomes. That Trump’s badly botched policy process went on to engender pushback and criticism from those in Washington with the president’s ear—including Sen. Lindsey Graham and National Security Advisor John Bolton—only made it more difficult for Trump to hold true to his December announcement. Sensing a fleeting opportunity, Erdogan published his op-ed with an audience of one in mind, beginning with a frank assertion: “President Trump made the right call to withdraw from Syria.”