Faced with a Turkish military sweep into northern Syria after his decision to withdraw support for anti-ISIS Kurdish allies, Donald Trump has now tucked tail entirely. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told Face the Nation that Trump has ordered the withdrawal of nearly all U.S. troops in northern Syria, roughly 1,000 in all.
American officials had accused Syrian forces of deliberately targeting U.S troops with artillery fire, possibly in an effort to pressure the Americans into a retreat. That seems to be exactly what resulted: Esper said that Trump ordered the pullout after indications Turkey intended to push "farther south than originally planned and to the west."
Faced with the choice between ordering U.S. troops to defend themselves from overzealous Syrian forces and retreating, Trump quickly chose retreat. What we don't know is whether the choice was the result of Trump, a coward, again being easily rolled by a small-time autocrat or whether this is still part of some secret negotiation between the Turkish president to allow the Turkish invasion in exchange for ... what? It's a mystery.
What we do know is that the Trump retreat seems hand-tailored to result in ethnic cleansing of Kurdish towns in the region—and resurrect ISIS. "It's absolutely a given that they will come back," ex-defense secretary Jim Mattis told Meet the Press. An unnamed U.S. official told CNN that ISIS "has a second lease on life with nearly 100,000 who will re-join their jihad."
As for Trump's previous threat to destroy the Turkish economy if the Turkish military mounted the invasion that is currently underway? It's gone invisible. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told This Week that Turkey has been put "on warning." "The president has authorized me to shut down the Turkey economy and we can do that at a moment's notice on his comment."
Oh, so Trump can supposedly do this at a moment's notice—and yet has not?
No doubt it's because he's been busy ordering the U.S. military to turn tail in the face of a looming massacre. That, and golfing; after ordering the retreat on Saturday night, Trump was off Sunday morning to again play golf at one of his private clubs.