Tag: United States
A Kurdish view of Turkey’s invasion
Yousif Ismael is the Director of Media and Policy at the Washington Kurdish Institute. Colin Tait is a Research Assistant at the Middle East Institute.
Colin Tait: What can we expect in the coming days in northeastern Syria with this invasion?
Yousif Ismael: It’s already started. It has already resulted into the death of two civilians and the injury of one. The airstrikes are intense and covering all the bordering towns between Syria, the Kurdish region, and Turkey. We expect a lot of internally displaced people from those areas to go south. We expect massacres and we say massacres because we have experience with the same groups and the same state with Turkey and the jihadists in Afrin in March of 2018. We expect disaster and unfortunately, there’s not a lot of ears to eat.
CT: Ankara right now claims that they just planned to establish a safe zone and peace corridor along the border. Do you expect that they will go further south?
YI: First of all, the peace corridor or whatever they call it is based on a war propaganda. This is not reality. Sometimes they claim to fight ISIS but there is no ISIS over there whatsoever. The Kurds secured that region and the Kurds have never shot a bullet against Turkey from that region. It’s safer than the bordering points that Turkey has with the opposition groups and with Assad elsewhere. So, this is just a war propaganda. They are talking about a safe zone of 30 kilometers deep that basically is the Kurdish region of Syria. What people need to understand is that the Turkish ambition is historical against the Kurds. They are against any Kurdish entity rising up. They did the same thing in Iraqi Kurdistan, but then there was an imposed no-fly zone against Saddam which helped the Kurds create the entity. The same thing with Syria, they’re fighting with Turkey. Inside Turkey, the Kurds of course are suffering since 1923 when the Turkish state was built. We are worried it is not going to be only that but the 30 kilometers is good enough for Turkey to destroy the Kurdish region.
CT: The US removal of troops has caused a lot of short-term disasters that are occurring in the region. What is the long-term blowback you think for the region as a whole as well as the damage to the relationship between the Kurds and United States?
YI: Now the Americans as people, as lawmakers, as media, and as think tanks have showed their true feelings, which is about supporting the Kurdish and avoiding massacres and genocide. It mostly itself is based on the humanitarian situation. We love and we appreciate what America has showed to us except President Trump. He is the only one who is convinced to allow Turkey to invade and commit massacres. In the short-term, the US doesn’t have good policy in Syria. They gave up the West during the Obama Administration and now, they’re giving up East to Turkey during the Trump Administration. The relationship will always be great between the two Nations. However, the Kurds right now are obligated to go to our enemies and the enemies of the US as well, which is Iran, the Assad regime, and Russia to get some source of some protection. It is a fight for survival.
To be fair and far from emotions, the Syrian regime and Russia also don’t offer much to the Kurds. They don’t give them any entity or any rights. But to surrender the entire region to Assad, which is basically going back to pre-2012, the Kurds were persecuted without citizenship and had no rights. We didn’t have many options.
Going back to the cooperation between the US and Kurds, the Kurds wanted to defend their land and not become refugees and stay in their homeland. And the only people to help them they were the US and the US-led Coalition which was great. The Kurds defended their land thanks to the US but also the Kurds fought with US on behalf of the world against terror organizations. It’s two sides of the argument here and we are very disappointed that this big threat to the national security of the US and elsewhere is not affecting the president’s decision making because ISIS is on the verge to come back. Al-Qaeda is only becoming stronger and nobody’s even talking about it. They even have schools. They have thousands of troops in Syria. Then we’re talking about Iran, yet we’ve given them another strategic part which affects the allies of the US.
CT: Going back to the Kurds and the US and Trump harming the relationship. Congress on both sides of the spectrum have said that they want to impose sanctions and push back on President Trump’s decision. Do you think sanctions are enough? And what can US policymakers do to backpedal and reverse this decision.
YI: Just a side note. The only bipartisan non-binding resolution that took place by the Senate was in January or December of last year when Trump wanted to withdraw. That was the only bipartisan movement. The Kurds united the two sides, the Democrats and Republicans. This same thing is repeating itself, which is amazing because national security should be a bipartisan issue. It should not be a Democratic or Republican. But yes, sanctions are not enough. There’s always a veto by the president and there are always ways to get away with it. Turkey got away with breaking the sanctions of the US against Iran. Turkey got away with buying Russian weapons. Turkey got away with helping the Venezuelan dictatorship by trading gold between Iran and Venezuela and this is all on record on a media publicly. I think that a good immediate solution is to shut down the skies on Turkey to stop these massacres against the Kurds. The Kurds then could figure out how to resist or just to survive better than allowing them to use the sky. A no-fly zone would be ideal and that should be the priority of Congress.
CT: I met with a former Syrian diplomat and he discussed how the Autonomous Administration of North Eastern Syria is the best model for the future of a stable Syria. What can be done to preserve this idea as Turkey starts to invade Northeastern Syria?
YI: The US built this multi-ethnic Kurdish majority and now Arab majority multi-ethnic force that defeated the most brutal organization of ISIS. After that, Kurds helped the other communities, with the help of the US DOD and Pentagon to be specific, to help these civilian councils to manage. This is a very secular decentralized system that is pro-human rights and women rights. They have a different vision and they’re not calling for independent Kurdistan. They want to remain in Syria.
It is a very good model to follow. The only way to preserve it is to stop Turkey because sooner or later, if this continues, Iran, Russia, and the Syrian regime will pounce at the towns because the Kurds cannot fight everyone and all the Kurds are asking for is peace and talks with Turkey.
Nobody wants war. Nobody wants to be killed. 11,000 YPG members have been killed and 22,000 injured as the SDF. This is affecting 200 thousand families. Look how many families are affected by this. The economy there is stable. All of these displaced people are in that region. Turkey is complaining about the refugees, but that region also has refugees. The Kurds were welcoming them even though they are under blockage of Syria, Turkey, and sometimes even by Iraq. It is not just a Kurdish problem. It is a Syrian problem.
CT: Can you talk about how the International Community aside from the United States can help with this crisis?
YI: To be fair, it is European responsibility even before the US to prevent this. Europe is closer to Turkey and the terrorists will eventually make their way to Europe before the United States. The Europeans should definitely do more, and I urge them and beg them and ask them to stop this invasion because this is not in their interest and not in Turkey’s interest, meaning the economy and the authoritarian regime of Turkey. This is having the Turkish soldiers ordered to go fight for something that is not his problem. This is something that is personal to Erdogan and his dictatorship ideology to resolve this Islamic Empire of Ottomans and this and that. It’s against the interest of everyone. I hope the Europeans will be serious and finally step up their game and prevent what is to happen in the coming days.
CT: What are you and other Kurdish organizations here in DC and around the country plan to do about this issue?
YI: We do our job as raising awareness. We defended the political, the culture, and the human rights of the Kurds in all parts. Today, Syrian Kurdistan is really in trouble and they’re facing massacres by Turkey. We will continue raising awareness, but we are again thankful for every voice from actors to think tanks to the media to lawmakers that they came up and spoke the truth and stood against the bad decision of President Trump.
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Stevenson’s army, October 9
– The Post has a good tick-tock on the Erdogan-Trump phone call. It sounds as if Trump wen through his talking points to rebuild US-Turkish relations — trade, F-35s, WH visit next month — then Erdogan warned Trump of planned Turkish military moves in Syria, and Trump changed his policy. Right afterwards, WH put out a press release on the call. You know the rest.
Prof. Edelman has a good piece criticizing the US action.
NYT reveals a hitherto secret Russian organization whose mission is said to be to destabilize Europe.
Then there’s the impeachment mess. The WH Counsel sent a letter basically stonewalling all impeachment-related subpoenas. In federal court, DOJ argued that the Supreme Court precedent requiring Nixon to surrender his tapes doesn’t apply to President Trump.
As this recent CRS report shows, congressional subpoenas can be enforced by criminal action if DOJ agrees to take the case [as they already haven’t in the case of Trump] or by civil action through the courts, which can take years.
While there have been some high profile executive refusals of subpoenas in recent years — firing district attorneys under GW Bush and “fast and furious” raids under Obama — remember Obama administration complied with Benghazi hearings. And then this:
Schiliro, the former director of legislative affairs under President Obama and a former staff director of the House Oversight Committee, also pointed to the past:
Twenty years ago Rep Dan Burton, as Chair of the House Oversight Committee, issued 1,052 unilateral subpoenas over six years to the Clinton Administration and the Democratic Party. No matter how unreasonable many of those subpoenas were, either the information was provided or a compromise reached. Every previous Administration has recognized the legitimate and constitutional role Congress has in oversight. This Administration is asserting a radical legal position based on nothing.
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Sickening
Today’s announcement of a unilateral withdrawal of US forces from northeastern Syria in response to Turkey’s request is the worst of many possible worlds: Ankara will take over the border area, much of which is predominantly Kurdish, precipitating a fight with the PYD Syrian Kurds, ending the Kurdish effort against the remnants of the Islamic State, and enabling the Syrian government to reassert its control over the natural and agricultural resources of the northeast, most of which do not lie along the border.
President Erdogan sought the American withdrawal, though he may be surprised if it is complete. I will be too. The US should be maintaining some counterterrorism forces in northeastern Syria. They could be nominally covert rather than overt. Or they could be maintained over the border in Iraq. The ability to strike quickly and accurately is important. But President Trump needs to be able to brag that he has ended at least one Middle East war and withdrawn American troops, so what is desirable in terms of national security may give way to what is politically convenient.
Turkey will now take on the brunt of the fight against the Islamic State as well as against the Syrian Kurdish forces that support the PKK insurgency inside Turkey. Ankara also intends to move large numbers of Syrian refugees (millions is the stated number) back into a part of Syria where few of them lived before. Whole cities will need to be built. This is a big increase in Turkish burdens. It remains to be seen how well Ankara does. Economic pressures will make it doubly difficult.
The Syrian Kurdish forces will presumably flee south, into territory that is mostly Arab, and turn to Damascus for protection. President Assad used Syrian Kurds against Turkey for many years and will support their efforts to promote insurgency against the Turkish presence in northern Syria. This will put the Russians in an awkward spot, as Moscow wants to maintain good relations with both Ankara and Damascus, but President Putin has proven skilled at that game so far. Iran will be happy to see Turkey discomforted.
The US withdrawal will in principle create an opportunity to improve Washington’s relations with Ankara, but the Turkish purchase of Russian air defenses and the consequent American refusal to sell F35 airplanes to Turkey remain as serious obstacles. It is difficult to see how that knot will get untied, though Erdogan is skilled at backing up when he sees a real need to do so. President Trump would likely give in easily on the F35s, but there Congress plays a decisive role.
A negotiated US withdrawal might have avoided many of the difficulties that will now arise. But President Trump is proving inept at negotiations. The North Koreans have denounced their talks with the US over last weekend as “sickening.” So too is the decision to unilaterally withdraw from Syria.
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A vote for change
Kosovo voted for a new parliament today. The results are striking: the two parties that formed most of the majority in the last parliament came in third and fourth. Two opposition parties came in first and second. The PDK (Democratic Party of Kosovo), which has been in government since independence, has declared it will go into opposition. The electoral mechanism seems to have functioned well, but official assessments won’t be available for a couple of days.
The leaders were the LDK (Democratic League of Kosovo), which led the non-violent protest movement before the 1999 war and has participated in government coalitions in the past, and VV (Self-Determination), which is a post-war movement that has never been in the government. At this writing, VV is claiming to have won. The cautious and moderate Isa Mustafa, a former prime minister, leads the LDK. The sometimes unruly and charismatic Albin Kurti leads VV. Many have thought they might govern together in the next coalition, but that was before they won virtually equal shares of yesterday’s vote. There are now presumably other arithmetic possibilities, so an intense negotiation is likely, taking weeks if not months unless the LDK and VV agree quickly on a prime minister and a government program.
Yesterday’s result was foreshadowed in National Democratic Institute polling from March, which concluded:
The research shows that citizens desire reforms that will foster social cohesion, economic opportunity, and the rule of law. Tackling corruption cuts across all of these areas and remains at the forefront of citizen priorities. On dialogue with Serbia to normalize post-war relations, citizens seek greater transparency and are not in favor of border changes to bring about a resolution. Generally, citizens seek greater efforts of political leaders to foster consensus to bring policy changes that will improve their lives.
The citizens wanted change and voted for it. Those who think the US and Europe are determined to maintain “stabilocracy” take note: Washington and Brussels will not be unhappy to see alternation in power.
The governing challenge will be a big one. Complaints about corruption in Kosovo in my experience focus on two levels:
- Grand corruption by political leaders and their families, who are known to control assets far larger than their salaries can have provided;
- More or less petty corruption via nepotism, especially in hiring for government positions.
I hope the new government, whoever enters it, will launch a major effort to document and prosecute grand corruption. Nepotism is going to be harder: Kosovo is a society in which extended family ties are still strong. Hiring your cousin is a familial obligation that many see as corrup only when others do it.
The dialogue with Serbia will be another priority, as both Brussels and Washington are pressing for complete normalization of relations between Pristina and Belgrade. But they are pressing for different solutions: Washington is looking for a land swap that its newly appointed Special Envoy will no doubt press; Brussels is looking for a solution that maintains Kosovo’s territorial integrity even if it compromises its sovereignty over Serb communities. This kind of split between the EU and the US is not a good omen.
Nor is the impending Serbian election, due by April next year. President Vucic is a skilled manipulator of Western thinking, even if he has presided over a years-long slide of Serbia in Russia’s direction. He will argue that Serbia has to “get something” in the negotiations with Kosovo because he needs a parliament that will have to ratify the outcome. In order to get a good deal, Pristina will need to be ready to walk away from a bad one, but that will be difficult if Brussels and Washington decide to back it.
One unfortunate wrinkle in the election results: over 90% of Serbs voted for a list controlled by Belgrade. Vucic regards this as a triumph. I regard it as betraying the unfortunate autocratic control Belgrade exercises among the Serbs of Kosovo. Maybe it is also evidence that Serbia can agree to just about anything on Kosovo without Vucic getting something.
Any government that wants to please the citizens of Kosovo will want to deliver economic results. Kosovo has not done all that badly in recent years:
That’s 2000 on the lower left and 2018 on the upper right. The World Bank appropriately puts this performance in perspective:
Kosovo is a lower-middle-income country which has experienced solid economic growth over the last decade. Kosovo is one of only four countries in Europe to experience growth in every year since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008.
Like it or not, Kosovo’s economy is heavily dependent on the Balkans region, which in turn is heavily dependent on Europe. Growth at higher rates than in the recent past (about 4%) will require that the EU grow faster, but the next Kosovo government would do well to prepare for that day by increasing transparency and reducing grand corruption. That’s what change should mean on the economic front.
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Time to spill the beans
Yes, I do know both Bill Taylor and Kurt Volker. Bill and I worked together at USIP for several years. We were good colleagues, not personal friends. Kurt I know less well, but he was for a while a colleague at SAIS in the Center for Transatlantic Relations. Both are bright, devoted, distinguished professional diplomats, but like all of us they have their distinct personalities and foibles. Bill is more moderate and cautious, Kurt more daring and political, in the sense of making known his Republican affiliation. I have no idea what party Bill prefers.
That is the rule among Foreign Service officers: they keep their professional interactions apolitical, even if many of us have strong preferences. I have been a registered Democrat since my last years in the State Department in the 1990s, but I rarely mentioned that while in the Service and I never asked anyone else about political affiliation.
Bill’s contribution in the now-public text messages exchanged among US officials concerned with Ukraine is clear: he questioned whether the effort to squeeze Ukraine into conducting a judicial investigation of former Vice President and now presidential hopeful Biden by denying military assistance was proper. To the even modestly practiced eye, it looks like the use of public office for private gain, which is the definition of corrupt abuse of power. It might have been legitimate had the Trump Administration provided any credible evidence of wrongdoing by Biden, or asked through judicial channels, but they didn’t. This was what President Trump often accuses his opposition of doing: a witch hunt intended to knock the strongest candidate (at least in current polling) out of the race.
My guess is that Bill’s days in Kiev, where he is serving as an interim ambassador in a post he occupied from 2006 to 2009, are numbered. Trump will want to be rid of him as soon as possible but may hesitate for a while fearing what testimony Bill will give in Congress once he is freed from government service. I can’t imagine Bill will want to stay, though his devotion to Ukraine might weigh in that direction. In any event, he won’t have much influence after questioning the President’s corrupt attempt to get a Ukrainian judicial investigation going by leveraging US military assistance.
Kurt is already out of government service and was deposed Friday behind closed doors in the House, which saw fit to make public some of the unclassified text messages. His situation requires a bit more explication.
Kurt was an unpaid Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations. In my view, he has done good things in that role most notably getting the State Department to declare that the US would not recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea, which Moscow seized by force from Kiev in 2014. He has also advocated successfully for the US to ship lethal, even if defensive, weapons to Kiev’s forces, which are still battling an insurgency Russia supports in southeastern Ukraine.
So when President Trump held up on Congressionally authorized arms shipments to Ukraine, Kurt would have been understandably anxious to get them moving. That was what he was trying to do when he engaged with the Ukrainians and the President’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. There is nothing inherently wrong with Kurt having helped Giuliani. Diplomats often help Americans and American companies to do things that are consistent with US policy. The problem here is not his making an appointment or arranging a phone call, per se, but rather what the President’s personal lawyer was up to: he was using the arms shipments to get the Ukrainians to do what Trump wanted for his campaign. Kurt clearly understood this and might have objected, but let’s remember: he wanted the arms shipments to restart. The President’s purpose he might well have considered above his pay grade.
There is one other wrinkle in Kurt’s story: while unpaid in his government role, he continued to be affiliated with a consulting firm that had business with the Ukrainian government. He is reported to have “recused” himself from contact with that aspect of the business. I don’t know whether his dual role violated the law, and there have been no allegations of wrongdoing of which I am aware. But it doesn’t pass my smell test, which also dislikes Hunter Biden’s roles in China and Ukraine, even if there was no wrongdoing. Appearances matter. Kurt might have known better.
Whatever foibles Kurt and Bill may display, the bigger picture is clear: the President of the United States thinks he has the right to demand foreign investigations of his political opponents, which amount to illegal foreign assistance to his campaign. He did it with Russia, which he encouraged to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. Now he is doing it again with Ukraine and China. He said so yesterday:
The lesson here is clear: even consummate professionals end up getting sullied if they serve with this Administration. It is time for those who can afford to do so to leave, spilling the beans to Congress as well as the press and helping to liberate from Trump’s grip the 20 Republican Senators needed to remove this President from office after he is impeached in the House.
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One more failure
I’d like to revise my judgment yesterday that the appointment of Richard Grenell as Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations is bizarre. It is likely worse than that, possibly even tragic. I hasten to add that I have not talked with the White House about it. There is no point: they lie too much for me to rely on anything they say.
A few things are nevertheless clear. Grenell is a John Bolton protege and far right advocate who has gone out of his way to offend his German hosts. If you wanted to make common cause with Europe in the Balkans, Grenell is the last American you would choose for the task. The Germans have made it clear they will not accept land swaps in the Balkans. Bolton was an advocate of land swaps between Kosovo and Serbia. The logic was compelling for an ethnic nationalist: Serbs want to be governed by Serbs and Albanians by Albanians. Anything else is too hard. Equal rights is liberal democratic clap trap, at home and abroad.
In addition, land swaps would kill two Clinton accomplishments with one blow: Kosovo will become the eastern province of Albania, sooner or later, and Bosnia and Herzegovina will be partitioned. Don’t worry about how many people will be displaced or die in the process, or even the radicalization of the Bosnian Muslims if they are forced into a rump Islamic Republic. Serbia will be so delighted to gain northern Kosovo as well as Republika Srpska that it will love the Americans again. It might even be possible to cut a deal with the Russians to recognize the annexation of Crimea in exchange for UN membership for rump Kosovo, which won’t matter for long as it will join Albania in due course. That is the kind of crude ethnonationalist logic the Administration is applying elsewhere, in particular to Israel and Palestine. Why not in the Balkans?
What does this mean for the good people of Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia? Pandora’s box will be opened with the border changes:
- Serbs will leave from south of the Ibar in Kosovo,
- Albanians will be pushed out of Serbia,
- Muslims will try to seize Brcko in Bosnia to prevent partition there,
- Bosnian Croats will declare the re-creation of their Herzeg-Bosna parastate.
In short, this is a formula for destabilization of the Balkans, precisely what the Russians have sought. Is it any wonder that the Trump Administration might try to deliver it?
Ironically, Secretary of State Pompeo* has been visiting Macedonia and Montenegro, the two newest members of NATO. He’ll get an earful there about the dangers that lurk in any land swap arrangement. Montenegro, because it has been governed for many years with the support of minorities, is not so much in danger, though quite a few of its Albanians might like to join Kosovo and most of its Serbs remain opposed to its independence. Macedonia is certainly at risk if some sort of land swap becomes a reality, even if many Albanians there will be reluctant to lose their sweet power-sharing arrangement in Skopje.
You might think the Trump Administration has enough trouble of its own making in the Middle East, Ukraine, North Korea, China, Venezuela and half a dozen other places, without reviving the zombie idea of land swaps in the Balkans. But they seem determined, with Grenell’s appointment, to add the Balkans to the list of their foreign policy failures.
*The original post said it was Vice President Pence. Apologies for my mistake.
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