10 Reasons Why Trump Is Wrong to Support Turkey

Michael Rubin

Security, Middle East

As Islamic State prisoners go free and hundreds of thousands of Kurds, Christians and Yazidis flee Turkey’s bombardment, how true are the assumptions driving Trump’s turn toward Turkey?

Turkey invaded Kurdish-administered northeastern Syria last week after President Donald Trump essentially green-lighted the operation in a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Many supporters of the president’s decision say he was right to “restore balance” to the U.S.-Turkey partnership, that the United States has no business in Syria, and Washington’s partnership with the Kurds was unwise, especially given the links between Syria’s Kurds and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey—a U.S.-designated terrorist group. But as Islamic State prisoners go free and hundreds of thousands of Kurds, Christians and Yazidis flee Turkey’s bombardment, how true are the assumptions driving Trump’s turn toward Turkey?

1) Is Turkey’s Perspective on Syrian Kurds Valid?

“There is a legitimate security concern for Turkey here,” The Washington Institute’s Soner Cagaptay told PBS Newshour as the Turkish military began their bombardment of Kurdish and Christian towns and villages in northeastern Syria. The Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran and Princeton University’s Michael Reynolds wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “The U.S. chose to support the Syrian wing of the PKK, which the Turkish public holds responsible for decades of warfare and tens of thousands of deaths. The PKK represents a grave threat to the Turkish Republic, and Turks across the political spectrum loathe it.”