--:-- [Upbeat music fades out]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for this episode of Today Explained comes from Quip Electric Toothbrushes. Over one million mouths employ the Quip Electric Toothbrush for their cleaning services. And you can get started over at getquip.com slash explained where the Quip starts at just $25 and your first set of refills is free. Getquip.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Jen Williams, you are one of the hosts of the Worldly Podcast here at Vox. And there's been this whole back and forth about troop withdrawals in the last few weeks. And it all started with a tweet?
--:-- Jen Williams: Right. Well, it all started on December 19th when the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had ordered the troop withdrawal from Syria.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Vox's defense reporter Alex Ward immediately emails the Pentagon for comment. And they reply that at this time we continue to work by with and through our partners in the region.
--:-- Jen Williams: So this kind of like noncommittal, like vague, we don't know what the hell's going on kind of thing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then literally one minute after he gets that response from the Pentagon, Trump tweets out this tweet saying, we have defeated ISIS in Syria. My only reason for being there during the Trump presidency.
--:-- Jen Williams: And then right after that, he posts this wild video where he basically announces that he's pulling troops out of Syria. So our boys, our young women, our men, they're all coming back and they're coming back now. We won. And that's the way we want it. And that's the way they want it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that's the way they want it. And what was the immediate reaction here in the United States?
--:-- Jen Williams: It was basically pandemonium. Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, freaked out. He issued this statement saying that an American withdrawal at this time would be a big win for ISIS, Iran, Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Russia. I fear it will lead to the devastating consequences for our nation, the region and throughout the world.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: To those who say we have defeated ISIS in Syria. That is an inaccurate statement.
--:-- Jen Williams: Trump's secretary of defense, James Mattis, resigns basically over this decision. It was a big deal. And a lot of, like, senators on both sides of the aisle were super pissed off and freaked out.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Trump said that he basically fired Jim Mattis.
--:-- Jen Williams: Do we know what the reality was? Was Mattis done so and walked out?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I know I read his resignation letter over the break.
--:-- Jen Williams: So he basically had made this, like, last-ditch effort to convince Trump, like, please don't do this. Like, after he tweets this stuff out, right, he apparently drafts this letter, this resignation letter, and then goes to the White House and says, like, look, dude, like, can I just convince you to maybe walk this back or whatever?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Apparently Trump just sticks to his guns. And then Mattis says, OK, that I'm officially resigning.
--:-- Jen Williams: So he put his resignation, like, effective as of, like, I think in February or something like that. And so Trump then turns around after apparently reading the resignation letter, which was like super not nice to Trump. Apparently Trump reads that as like, oh, no, you can go ahead and just leave effective as of December 31st. Like, how about you just leave now?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. So, I mean, he, you know, Mattis resigned, but Trump was like, you can't resign because you're fired. Kind of like that.
--:-- Jen Williams: It feels like, you know, everyone was surprised by this decision, including the secretary of defense. Why was it made in late December?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. Not only was everyone surprised, like even the person who kind of asked Trump to do this was surprised.
--:-- Jen Williams: So the reason why it happened right now, as far as we can tell, is that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was on a phone call with President Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he was basically saying – Erdogan was saying like, hey, we plan to launch this military offensive against the Kurds.
--:-- Jen Williams: Now, the Kurds are this like group that the US has partnered with on the ground since like the fight against ISIS in Syria began.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sure. They're our allies. And we basically had this kind of deal where it's like, look, we will protect you against mainly Turkey because Turkey sees the Kurds as this like terrorist group because they want to form their own like country.
--:-- Jen Williams: And they've been fighting against the Turkish government for decades. And so we basically said, look, we will defend you against the Turks and make sure that like nobody comes in and tries to knock out this like area that you're trying to establish for your own country.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: On the flip side, like what you're going to do for us is you're going to help us fight ISIS.
--:-- Jen Williams: And so they've been this like really effective partner in fighting ISIS for us and with us in Syria.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Erdogan calls up Trump and says like, hey, I'm about to launch this offensive against the Kurds, which is the thing we said we would protect the Kurds against.
--:-- Jen Williams: Right. And Trump, having long said he wants to pull out of Syria, having not really caring why we're there, he believes we've defeated ISIS.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. So he's like, all right, well, shit, I'm not going to keep American troops there if they're going to get in the way of this offensive.
--:-- Jen Williams: Because, you know, potentially if that happens, we could get into like a shooting war with Turkey, who just a reminder, is a U.S. ally in NATO.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. And like they host our nuclear weapons there. So like that would be bad.
--:-- Jen Williams: It would be like two, you know, really close allied countries accidentally getting into a shooting war.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Trump like already wants to do this. Erdogan basically gives him the excuse.
--:-- Jen Williams: So Trump says, yeah, you know what? This guy makes a good point. Like ISIS is basically defeated.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah. Then starts tweeting about it.
--:-- Jen Williams: Like before even our – like most of our allies had been alerted to it, before the Pentagon seemed to even really know that this was happening.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like he just made a giant significant decision about U.S. troop deployment in a foreign country and doesn't seem to have actually run that past.
--:-- Jen Williams: Like the people who were in charge of, you know, bringing those troops home or like the other allies who were involved, like the European allies who were also part of that coalition fight with us against ISIS.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like he just did it.
--:-- Jen Williams: And now the result is that we're seeing this scramble and this back and forth of like what is the policy, what isn't the policy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And like the broader point here is that like you can't do foreign policy that way.
--:-- Jen Williams: Imagine if you're like a Kurdish fighter. Do you keep trusting the U.S. to have your back?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Do you start making alliances with Iran and the Assad regime?
--:-- Jen Williams: If you're Israel, what do you do? Do you trust that Bolton is really telling the truth?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Or do you hedge your bets and go well shit I don't know if I can trust this guy because Trump keeps tweeting other stuff.
--:-- Jen Williams: Like this is not how to run U foreign policy. This is a clusterfuck.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Coming up, the two conditions to the United States' withdrawal. Defeating ISIS and taking care of the Kurds.
--:-- Jen Williams: This is Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't know if you made any New Year's resolutions yet.
--:-- Jen Williams: One of mine is to learn how to whistle really, really, like deafeningly stop the cab in the middle of the street loud, but like without any fingers because who knows where those things have been when you're like walking around the city or something.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But another one you could get into if you're into it is buying a Quip electric toothbrush and taking better care of your mouth.
--:-- Jen Williams: The Quip happens to be accepted by the American Dental Association. It's one of the first with thousands of verified five-star reviews.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You get a cover that comes with it that you can take anywhere you go.
--:-- Jen Williams: You can find the Quip at getquip.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It starts at just $25 dollars and your first set of refills is free, over a million people have made the transition to the quip.
--:-- Jen Williams: G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Whenever I start an interview, I ask my guests to tell me what they do just so I get it right. Because sometimes titles are long and complicated. My name is John Alterman. It's J-O-N-A-L-T-E-R-M-A-N.
--:-- John Alterman: I'm Senior Vice President, the Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and the Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay. Now I'll ask some real questions.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When we were not done, I thought this is all the time I have. Just announcing my title. That was the whole thing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay, so Dr. Altman, there are two major conditions to the United States' withdrawal from Syria. One is not until ISIS is defeated. And two is, you know, not if the Kurds are in a precarious position, if they're unsafe.
--:-- John Alterman: Well, ISIS is down but not out. And one of the challenges of ISIS is it's strong because it's always been a very adaptive organization.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How exactly is ISIS doing right now?
--:-- John Alterman: It's been an online ideology. It's been a fighting force. It's been a terrorist group that does onesies and twosies and a bunch of lone wolves in Europe and elsewhere.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What's really hard is determining when an idea is dead.
--:-- John Alterman: When does ISIS lose its ability to inspire anybody in Syria to do anything? The reality is we're likely not to know that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: ISIS is going to be able to disrupt. ISIS is going to be able to kill people in Syria for a long time to come.
--:-- John Alterman: What is good enough is going to be in the eye of the beholder.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And how about the second major concern here, the Kurds?
--:-- John Alterman: Well, you can make a deal with Turkey, but it's not necessarily a deal that's going to protect Kurdish interests.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Bolton failed to get a meeting with Erdogan today. Is a deal still possible?
--:-- John Alterman: The United States has long seen the Kurds differently than the Turks.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the fact is that for years, the Kurds have spilled blood on behalf of U.S. interests.
--:-- John Alterman: And granted, there are also Kurdish interests, but the Kurds have taken it on the chin and allowed us to have a very light footprint because they were fighting for their own futures.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Walking away from the Kurds not only affects our interests in all the areas where there are Kurdish populations, which is Syria and Iraq and even into Iran and certainly into Turkey.
--:-- John Alterman: But it also sends a signal to other allies of the United States other groups that the United States has been supporting that maybe U support is transitory.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Maybe the U.S. will stand by you as long as it's in their narrow self-interest.
--:-- John Alterman: But as soon as the conditions change, the U.S. might walk away too.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that has an impact for a lot of people in both non-state actors and also governments that have been sacrificing on behalf of what they thought was a partnership with the United States, which turns out perhaps to be a short-term employment agreement.
--:-- John Alterman: So what's Erdogan's play here? He had a deal with Trump. Now he doesn't, but he wants that deal back?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My read of President Erdogan is that he is a pro.
--:-- John Alterman: I think that the way President Erdogan handled the phone call with President Trump is one of the great intelligence coups of the 21st century.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Because clearly his intelligence service prepared him for the phone call.
--:-- John Alterman: The president went into the phone call, and the president's task was to persuade the Turks not to move against U.S. allies among the Kurds.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what he ended up with was the president saying, you take care of it.
--:-- John Alterman: Ultimately, I think President Erdogan has done this job for a long time. He's a very savvy actor.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's playing a relatively weak hand incredibly well.
--:-- John Alterman: And he has a lot of cards to play and he is playing them artfully.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think just flattering him is not going to get you far.
--:-- John Alterman: I think Erdogan has his eye very much fixed on how does he get out of the difficult economic situation he's in?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How does he use vulnerabilities with Syria and convert them into assets for Turkey?
--:-- John Alterman: It looks like Trump's having to walk back his decision because everyone in his national security apparatus disagrees with him.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But there are surely a whole lot of Americans who do think, yeah, it's time to leave Syria, right?
--:-- John Alterman: I mean, one of the interesting things is the extent to which the president in many ways has his finger on the pulse of American politics more than the national security establishment.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: More than the sort of elite foreign policy world, which has convinced itself that pulling out of Syria suddenly is a terrific mistake.
--:-- John Alterman: I think the American public thinks pulling out of Syria is not only not a mistake, but it's long overdue.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How that plays out, how the president manages that, and how the bureaucracy manages that is something we've yet to see.
--:-- John Alterman: But I think one of the interesting things about this is this is another case where the president really does have his finger on the politics more than unelected people who are thinking in other terms about how the U.S. should act in the world.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The national security establishment wants to stick around. The people want out.
--:-- John Alterman: What's the fundamental issue here that these two sides can't agree on?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The issue that people have to come to terms with is under what circumstances should American soldiers fight and die on behalf of security in the Middle East?
--:-- John Alterman: And what can we say that's just a level of violence in the Middle East that we can't fix?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And we haven't really completely come to terms with a discussion on what we should care about in Syria.
--:-- John Alterman: Should we care about anywhere else? Who should we fight to defend?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what should we just let go?
--:-- John Alterman: And a lot of Americans, my reading is a lot of Americans say, you know what? Syria is something we should just let go.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And if more people die, that's one thing.
--:-- John Alterman: If more Americans die, that's something Americans should care about.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But if more Arabs die, then Arabs are dying. And that's up to Arabs to figure out.
--:-- John Alterman: So the other option is just staying for a very long time.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, as I say, my argument is that there are going to be negotiations that will determine the future of this country.
--:-- John Alterman: And we should be angling to improve our leverage in those negotiations.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's not about a completely open-ended military presence.
--:-- John Alterman: But it's also not about we pull out within 30 days come hell or high water.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If someone asked you, should we stay or should we go? You would say...
--:-- John Alterman: We should stay in order to negotiate the terms under which we leave.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks again to Quip Electric Toothbrushes for supporting the show today.
--:-- John Alterman: Over a million people use the Quip, and you can get yourself started at getquip.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Quip starts at $25, but there's lots of options if that's too cheap for you to soup that thing up.
--:-- John Alterman: The first set of refills. It's just free.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Getquip.com slash explained.
