John Bolton, President Trump’s National Security Advisor and a committed foreign policy hawk, has derailed his boss’s plans for a quick withdrawal from Syria.
Bolton told U.S. allies in the region that America would not beat a hasty retreat and would leave some troops behind to protect the Kurds, non-Arab Sunni Muslims who have done the lion’s share of the fighting to defeat ISIS. Trump has not contradicted Bolton, and in fact, is now pretending that was always the plan.
America does need to worry about the Syrian Kurds, whose support has been crucial to its efforts to defeat ISIS. Turkey, their mortal enemy, has every intention of slaughtering them once America leaves. The U.S. can’t leave them more vulnerable than when it intervened, something it has done to them—and other groups elsewhere—far too often, fueling the perception that America is a selfish power that uses and discards local allies at will.
But the best way to help the Kurds, notes Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia, is not by staying in Syria forever. It is by giving them exit options to come to America.
That, however, would require this administration to get rid of its misguided “Muslim” travel ban, which includes Syria.
from Hit & Run http://bit.ly/2TAiB68
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