The US Presidency and Pentagon are at odds over the issue of pulling the boys out of “Wrong Wars”. Only thing on President’s head is winning his reelection on the basis of fulfilling his 2016 campaign promises, how so ever silly those may have been. Pentagons strategy is to time out Trump and continue to hold on at all trouble spots, on one pretext or the other, hoping that they would have a new president in 2021. None of Post 9/11 troop pullout attempt has been trouble free. Each such attempt exposed poor mission execution by Pentagon with regard to post withdrawal stability. May be, at national level, Americans never planned for that end objective to give justification for perceptualizing their occupations. Moreover, the US military industrial complex has a vested interest in sustaining the ongoing conflicts.
Trump has long articulated to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan, but his repeated emphasis in recent weeks on the need to end all foreign wars has infused a new sense of urgency into the renewed Pentagon’s planning effort. The president’s abrupt policy shift on Syria also has shown he’s willing to follow through on his threats of troop withdrawals, though his advisers have been able to talk him out of such moves in the past. And it coincides with an increasing focus on the 2020 election. “I got elected on bringing our soldiers back home,” Trump told reporters on October 20. To underscore the point, the president said the biggest applause he received during a campaign rally in Dallas last week was when he talked about building a wall on the US-Mexico border and bringing American troops home. “When I said, ‘We’re bringing our soldiers back home,’ the place went crazy,” Trump said.
According to General Austin Miller, Commander of NATO’s Resolute Support Mission and US Forces in Afghanistan, America is already cutting down the number of its troops deployed in Afghanistan. The New York Times has reported that around 2000 soldiers were retrieved last year; roughly 12000 personnel are still in Afghanistan. Aversion has it that the fall in numbers is not linked to formal withdrawal process, but is taking place as troops completing their tenure in Afghanistan were not replaced. Persistent violent attacks by Taliban have, so far, frustrated President Trump’s plan to withdraw more than 5,000 American troops.
According to Lolita Baldor, General Miller’s remarks came only days after Secretary of Defence’s statement while travelling to Afghanistan on October 20. Secretary Mark Esper informed media guys, “With regard to a withdraw of forces, as we’ve always said, that it’ll be conditions based, but we’re confident that we can go down to 8,600 without affecting our [counter-terrorism] operations, if you will. But all that again, we think a political agreement is always the best way forward with regard to next steps in Afghanistan. “When pressed whether the troop reduction would happen with or without a peace deal with the Taliban, Esper said he didn’t “want to get ahead of the diplomats on that front.”
Peace process with the Taliban fell apart in September after Trump cancelled his secret meeting with Taliban and Afghan leaders at Camp David. Trump had called off the meeting after a US soldier and 11 others were killed in a Taliban car bomb attack. Trump’s reaction was an uncalled for knee jerk as Taliban have been doing this quite frequently at least since the beginning of current peace talks. Before the peace process was stalled, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad had shared a draft agreement with all stake holders. Plan focused on withdrawal of approximately 5,000 US troops from Afghanistan 135 days after signing the agreement alongside closure of some of the US bases. The Pentagon recently has begun drawing up plans for an abrupt withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan in case President Donald Trump surprises military leaders by ordering an immediate drawdown as he did in Syria. The contingency planning is ongoing, and includes the possibility that Trump orders all US troops out of Afghanistan within weeks. Planning is a precaution and there is currently no directive from the White House to pull US troops out of Afghanistan. However, an official described the president’s current approach to Syria as “a dress rehearsal” for what could happen in Afghanistan.
When Defence Secretary Mark Esper was asked during a surprise visit to Afghanistan on September 29 whether Trump could pull all US troops out of the country, Esper compared the situation to Syria, explaining they are very different missions. “Very different situations, very different adversaries if you will, very different level of commitment. Very clear policy direction on one,” Esper said. “All these things should reassure Afghan allies and others they should not misinterpret our actions in the region in the recent week or so in regard to Syria and contrast that with Afghanistan.”
General Scott Miller, said he has already streamlined the US presence in Afghanistan over the past year, bringing 2,000 troops out. “Where I sit right now as I make recommendations through my military chain of command,” he said, “I’m confident we have right capabilities to reach objectives, as well as continue to train, advise and assist throughout the country.”
However, a senior administration official said the president currently is planning for a reduction in the number of troops in Afghanistan in coming months. Trump has made clear to his advisers that he wants to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan by the 2020 election, NBC News reported in August. The collapse of Afghan peace talks, and the 2020 campaign, have raised concern among some administration officials of an increased likelihood that Trump would order a swift withdrawal, officials said.
After Trump threatened in December 2018 to immediately withdraw all troops from Afghanistan and shut down the US embassy in Kabul aides were able to convince him that if he instead let the peace talks continue, the US would leave in 2020. But the president is expected to move forward with what one official described as “a token withdrawal” of US troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year. Any reduction of American forces had previously hinged on progress in the peace talks with the Taliban. The US military officials still expect the president to order the withdrawal of at least several thousand U.S. troops by the end of this year, leaving almost 9,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Though such officials insist that the president has not made a final decision on how many troops to withdraw this year.
President Trump’s order to withdraw roughly 1,000 US troops from northern Syria opened a Pandora’s Box. Shortly after Turkey launched a military operation to rout America’s Kurdish partner force in the region. Turkey conducted a weeklong offensive into north-eastern Syria against the Kurdish fighters before a military pause. Likewise, decision to pull out American forces has left another partner force the SDF feeling betrayed. “We never agreed to protect the Kurds for the rest of their lives,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on October 21.
A US military convoy withdrawing from Hasaka base, Syria was pelted by vegetables and other rubbish by angry local residents upset with America’s sudden retreat from the region. The video posted by Kurds showed local Syrian residents throwing garbage and yelling at US logistics trucks as the convoy moved on. Residents of Qamishli, Syria, blocked the convoy and threw tomatoes at US forces as they attempted to drive through the city. Another Kurd video showed throwing of stones at an American convoy as it moved through the area near the Iraqi city of Erbil. A spokesperson for the Syrian Defence Forces, tweeted a video of angry Syrian residents holding signs and protesting in front of a US military convoy. One sign thanked the American people while condemning Trump for his betrayal. Images also showed Kurds “throwing potatoes”, and “yelling insults at American troops”
Iraq initially refused to station the US troops leaving Syria in their territories and operate from Iraq against Syrian targets; after a lot of background work, Iraq has agreed for a four weeks of stay. Esper said the US has no plans to have those troops stay in Iraq “interminably.” He said the aim is to pull US soldiers out and “eventually get them home.”
In the meanwhile Turkey has taken minimal steps to secure a 120 Kilometre buffer zone for protecting its borders from Kurd incursions. Kurds in turn asked Syrian government to intervene in their favour. Russia President acted swiftly and struck an understanding with Syria and Turkey to honour this buffer zone and in return Syrian troops won’t come in aid of Kurds. In the meanwhile Trump went through a bizarre trajectory of imposing sanctions on Turkey alongside a waiver to sell military hardware.
Some of the US soldier withdrawing from Syria were seen as sporting a patch of a controversial Kurdish militia group known as the YPJ. The YPJ is the women’s unit of People’s Protection Units (YPG) the Kurdish group considered a terrorist organization by Turkey. YPJ has been a staunch partner of the US-led effort to defeat Daesh in Syria, reportedly in exchange for a promise of an independent Kurd state carved out of Syria, Iraq, and Turkey and may be Iran, at an opportune time. In 2016, American military commanders had banned wearing of YPG and YPJ patches after Turkey became outraged following the circulation of photos of American commandos brandishing the patches.
Moreover, American troops and the US veterans who volunteered and fought with the SDF have expressed their dismay over the decision. President Trump declared that Washington had no stake in defending the Kurdish fighters who died by the thousands as America’s partners fighting in Syria.
Now there is as a face saving a talk that US may leave some forces in Syria to secure oil fields and make sure they don’t fall into the hands of a resurgent Daesh, Esper said on October 21. Even though President Trump has insisted he is pulling troops out of the country and getting out of “endless wars”, Esper said the main goal of leaving some troops around the oil fields would be to “make sure the Islamic State doesn’t (re)gain control of the revenue they (used to) generate”.
A ‘small handful’ of American troops (200-300) will remain at the Tanf garrison near the Syria-Iraq border. The Pentagon chief said the plan was still in the discussion phase and had not yet been presented to Trump, who has repeatedly said the Islamic State has been defeated. Esper emphasized that the proposal to leave a small number of troops in eastern Syria was intended to give the president “manoeuvre room” and wasn’t final. “There has been a discussion about possibly doing it,” Esper told a press conference in Afghanistan before heading to Saudi Arabia. “There has been no decision with regard to numbers or anything like that.”
The fact that such a plan was under consideration was another sign the administration was still trying to sort out its overall strategy amid fierce criticism from the president’s Republican allies of his abrupt decision to pull US forces back. A White House official said Senator Lindsey Graham raised the issue of keeping US forces in eastern Syria to protect the oil fields and that Trump supported the idea. Trump said on October 21 he still wants to get all US troops out of Syria, but “we need to secure the oil” in one part of the country while Israel and Jordan asked him to keep some forces in another part. “Other than that, there’s no reason for it, in our opinion,” he said. Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, when asked about the fact that the troops were not coming home as the president claimed they would, said, “Well, they will eventually.” He told “Fox News Sunday” that “the quickest way to get them out of danger was to get them into Iraq.” The US already has more than 5,000 American forces in Iraq, under an agreement between the two countries. The US pulled its troops out of Iraq in 2011 when combat operations there ended, but they went back in after Daesh began to take over large swaths of the country in 2014.
On October 20, the Impeacher in Chief, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a group of American lawmakers on a visit to Jordan to discuss “the deepening crisis” in Syria. King Abdullah II, in a meeting with the Americans, stressed the importance of safeguarding Syria’s territorial integrity and guarantees for the “safe and voluntary” return of refugees.
A US president who could mock as well as obstruct his impeachment, could issue any order, irrespective of consequences. One thing is certain, a substantial portion of the US troops would leave Afghanistan by 2020, either through a deal with Taliban or otherwise, and about half the troops would continue to hang on in Syria on some flimsy pretext. Also re-elected Trump or his successor’s first order after inaugural could be to resend troops to Syria and Afghanistan. So let’s keep our fingers crossed.
