The U.S. Moves Out, and Turkey Moves In

Days after President Donald Trump told Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that American troops would not stand in the way of a planned Turkish assault into northeastern Syria, the assault began. American troops pulled back from outposts near the border with Turkey, where a contingent of about 50 to 100 special operators were working with Kurdish-led forces against ISIS. Turkish warplanes kicked off a long-threatened operation that Erdogan has said is aimed at clearing a terrorist threat gathering on his country’s southern border.

Neither the threat of sanctions from Congress nor the threat to should Turkey do anything “off-limits” could stop the onslaught set in motion in a Sunday-night phone call between the U.S. and Turkish presidents. In that conversation, Erdogan American efforts to cooperate with Turkey on security near the border—the Kurdish militia that controls the area, which has been a vital American partner in defeating ISIS, is one that Turkey sees as a terrorist group. Erdogan has long declared that he would not allow those Kurdish forces, an offshoot of a Kurdish group in Turkey that fought the government there for decades, to establish a proto-state on his country’s border.