Just to be clear the troops being pulled out are about 1000 troops and not from formally ISIS controlled areas, but from the areas controlled by the Kurds? Now I’m wondering what is the harm leaving them there. Are they potential ISIS targets? Maybe keeping US troops there is a good warning to Islamist Turkey to not try to pull any shite.
The Turks are holding about 2 million Syrian refugees. They want to send them home and have them be safe. They want to do that by taking about a 30 mile swath of northern Syrian and setting up a protectorate area.
Many of the Kurds are PKK, an identified terrorist group that hates Turkey. They will do what they can to destroy any initiative on Turkey’s part.
So, the issue isn’t ONLY abandoning the Kurds. It’s safely repatriating a couple million Syrians back to their own country. The alternative for Turkey is to send them to Europe. The bottom line, then, is that Trump is helping Europe more than Europe helps Europe. But for the repatriation to be effective, the Kurdish terrorist groups need to be controlled.
In the meantime, the US Troops will just be cannon fodder for some group to attack to try to get the US involved.
Trump’s making a decent decision here. But all we’ll hear is that the Kurds are being betrayed. That’s by those who are into empire building by the USA.