--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- [Discussion begins]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The president is taking troops out of Syria because he's tired of endless wars. Endless wars. They don't stop. They don't stop. They go on forever. We become policemen.
--:-- Noel King: Because he wants to bring our soldiers back home. American combat troops should not be at the center of ancient sectarian conflicts. All over the world, bring our soldiers back home. Bring our soldiers back home. Because this isn't our war to fight.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you look at other countries, Russia, China, they don't have countries to take care of. We're close to 90 countries in one form or another. We're in 90 countries all over the world. Policing and, frankly, many of those countries, they don't respect what we're doing. They don't even like what we're doing, and they don't like us.
--:-- Noel King: But now it looks like they're not coming home at all. The current game plan is for those forces to reposition into Western Iraq and then to two missions. One is to help defend Iraq and two is to perform a counter-ISIS mission as we sort through the next steps.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: United States troops are being pulled out of Syria and sent to Iraq to continue fighting an endless war, but also to help fight ISIS. Even though the troop withdrawal in Syria might actually help ISIS in that country.
--:-- Noel King: And if you're having trouble wrapping your head around that, just wait until you hear about Saudi Arabia. In response to the kingdom's request, the president has approved the deployment of U.S. forces, which will be defensive in nature and primarily focused on air and missile defense.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We will also work to accelerate the delivery of military equipment to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to enhance their ability to defend themselves. So the Pentagon announced that it was going to be deploying an additional 1,800 troops to Saudi Arabia.
--:-- Noel King: Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced that he had ordered the deployment of two additional fighter squadrons and support personnel, including two batteries of soldiers, Patriot air defense missile systems, and another army unit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So far, 3,000 troops in total have been sent to Saudi Arabia since these attacks that happened last month on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities, which is why U.S. troops are going there now.
--:-- Noel King: Jen Williams is one of the hosts of Vox's Worldly podcast. I asked her to explain why the United States is ramping up in Saudi Arabia while it's shipping out of Syria.
--:-- Jen Williams: It goes back to about a month ago. So if you remember last month, there were these attacks on two separate Saudi oil facilities. More than 20 drones attached to the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and a major oil field, sparking massive fires.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The U.S. and multiple European countries have all basically said that they found that Iran was behind those attacks. This was Iran, true and true, and the United States will respond in a way that reflects that act of war by this Iranian revolutionary regime.
--:-- Noel King: So when that happened, it caused this immediate spike in oil prices. It was this really big kind of panic. People were like, oh, no, you know, Saudi produces a lot of oil for the global market. So it was really disruptive.
--:-- Jen Williams: And, you know, it was part of this kind of broader issue of Iran kind of acting out in the region after the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Iran deal. So it was part of this whole U.S.-Saudi-Iran drama that was going on in the region.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But how exactly does the U.S. get roped into sending troops to Saudi Arabia? There are other ways to help, right? You might remember there was a lot of talk about, like, is the U.S. going to attack Iran in response?
--:-- Noel King: And people were saying you know well that doesn't make sense. We're not technically allies with Saudi Arabia in any formal sense. So why do we have to attack Iran? They hit Saudi Arabia. So the solution basically that the Trump administration came up with was look we send you some additional troops to secure those oil facilities.
--:-- Jen Williams: The idea basically being that, you know, if you have U.S. forces at these really critical Saudi facilities and Iran knows the U.S. forces are there, it's a deterrent to Iran because Iran's not going to go, ideally, bombing these places if they know they're going to potentially hit U.S. forces.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah. Because that would mean then you did actually hit the U.S. and now you're going to start a war with the United States. Kind of like a tripwire almost. Basically. Sounds very comparable to the U.S. troops who were stationed in northeastern Syria that were preventing Turkey from entering the country.
--:-- Noel King: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Wherever you have U.S. troops, people tend to pay attention because, you know, if you launch a military attack, you're going to hit the United States and poke the bear, so to speak.
--:-- Jen Williams: So that's kind of what we do for our allies, or at least we used to, to have our troops there to make sure that other countries don't attack. That's why U.S. troops are in South Korea.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So this is obviously extra confusing because the Kurds were our allies. Right. And we're not doing this for them, but we are doing it for Saudi Arabia. Right. How exactly does the president justify that?
--:-- Noel King: So it doesn't really make sense, right? If you're thinking about America first, the idea of pulling troops out of the Middle East, like that makes sense. But well, then why are we putting troops back in somewhere else for this other Middle Eastern country?
--:-- Jen Williams: Right. And, you know, the short answer is Saudi Arabia apparently agreed to pay us. What? Yeah, to pay for this troop deployment. They've agreed to pay for the cost of those troops. They've agreed to pay fully for the cost of everything we're doing over there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's something you have never heard before. I think as long as you've been standing out there, I think the media has never heard that before. But Saudi Arabia has graciously agreed to pay for the full cost of everything we're doing for them.
--:-- Noel King: What's the rate? I'm not sure what the going rate is. It's usually like a reimbursement. This is actually kind of pretty normal, especially when it comes to Saudi Arabia.
--:-- Jen Williams: Saudi Arabia helped foot the bill for Operation Desert Storm. Remember back in the 90s when the U.S. sent troops to Saudi Arabia and, you know, to Kuwait to help push Iraq back out of Kuwait. We were getting paid for that by Saudi Arabia?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and a couple other countries agreed to reimburse us for that operation. And they did to the tune of billions of dollars.
--:-- Noel King: They're also, you may remember that the U.S. is assisting Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen by doing things like aerial refueling, so helping them refuel their planes in the air, things like that.
--:-- Jen Williams: And we're getting paid for that too? Yeah, they're also, like, Congress's, DOD and Congress have sent Saudi Arabia a bill saying you've got to reimburse us for that. So that's actually pretty normal.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Even in places like South Korea where we have U.S. military bases, you've heard Trump actually complain that they're not paying enough. But they foot the bill for a lot of the costs of actually running the bases, things like that.
--:-- Noel King: So it's actually pretty standard. It's just not the way we tend to think about it, that like only if you will pay me will I protect you. Right. And the Kurds didn't have money. Like Saudi Arabia has a lot of oil money.
--:-- Jen Williams: But the Syrian Kurds that we were allied with, we were allied with them for a different reason. They were giving us something else instead of money. They were fighting ISIS for us. And that was the tradeoff. We'll protect you from Turkey if you fight ISIS for us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How does Congress feel about this? Nancy Pelosi just the other day in that meeting she had at the White House with Trump and some of his senior aides. There was that famous picture of her kind of standing up and scolding Donald Trump around this big table you might have seen on the Internet.
--:-- Noel King: But at one point during that meeting, she did say, you're super excited to pull U.S. troops out of Syria because of this America first thing. My question to him was, is Saudi Arabia home? Is Saudi Arabia home? Why are our troops going to Saudi Arabia if you promised to bring them home?
--:-- Jen Williams: And apparently Trump just got really mad and called her nasty names and the whole meeting blew up and she walked out.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Congress is aware of this right. And plenty of Democrats are probably asking similar questions. But the U has already been helping Saudi Arabia with its war in Yemen.
--:-- Noel King: You know, we have all these agreements for like basically counterterrorism sharing kind of agreements and training agreements that we do with all sorts of countries where we send troops.
--:-- Jen Williams: I get that we have these counterterrorism agreements, but it feels like we have similar agreements and interests in Syria. So who benefits more here, Saudi Arabia or the United States?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, it's definitely Saudi Arabia, but it's really not that different, honestly, than previous U.S. administrations. I mean, the U.S. has kind of always had this weird relationship with Saudi Arabia.
--:-- Noel King: You know, again, we sent troops in in the 90s to help protect Saudi Arabia against aggression from Iraq. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saudi was like, uh-oh, we're probably next. Yeah.
--:-- Jen Williams: And so we sent troops there to help. We, again, you know, under the Obama administration, it was President Obama who agreed to help the Saudi war effort in Yemen, right? It wasn't Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So it's actually pretty normal from a U.S. foreign policy standpoint for the U.S. militarily to help out Saudi Arabia or to work with Saudi Arabia.
--:-- Noel King: I think that's actually one of the most normal things that Trump has done. What's different in particular with Trump is kind of what happened in Syria, right? We are actually more used to seeing U.S. troops being sent to places in the Middle East to help out allies or to shore up oil facilities or to push back against Iran.
--:-- Jen Williams: What you're not used to seeing is people pulling troops out. So Trump sending troops to Saudi Arabia is not that surprising. It's surprising for Trump maybe because America first. I want to end U.S. wars in the Middle East.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But he's kind of getting a good deal out of it, right? Like as long as they pay for it, you know, U.S. soldiers probably aren't going to be actually directly in harm's way in like any real sense in Saudi Arabia.
--:-- Noel King: It's not like, you know, in Afghanistan where they're getting shot at or bombed like every day. So it's a relatively safe deployment compared to some other areas.
--:-- Jen Williams: Right. And, you know, in return, the U.S. doesn't have to start a war with Iran. Right. Because remember, this is essentially the reason that Trump sent these troops to Saudi Arabia.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. So there was this attack by Iran on the Saudi oil facilities. Everyone was like, oh, you're going to have to bomb Iran. And Trump being Trump was like, I really do not want to start another war in the Middle East.
--:-- Noel King: So instead of doing that, instead of bombing Iran in response, he did what I would say is probably a much more reasonable policy response, which is to send a few thousand troops to Saudi Arabia.
--:-- Jen Williams: Tell Saudi Arabia, look, we're going to send you some forces. They're going to protect your oil facilities. It's going to be OK. And that way, like we didn't have to start this big old war with Iran.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. So that does make sense in some ways. Right. Right. But how does it look to be saying we're going to pull our troops out of Syria because we've been here long enough? And at the same time, we're going to send a bunch of troops to Saudi Arabia because they're paying us.
--:-- Noel King: What impression does that leave the region and maybe just on a slightly broader scale, the world?
--:-- Jen Williams: Yeah, it definitely doesn't look great, right? So if I'm a world leader kind of looking at Trump's decisions here in Syria and in Saudi Arabia and comparing them, My first response would probably be Trump is just doing whatever the hell he wants.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. It's impulsive. It doesn't seem like it's actually being driven by some broader strategic plan. Like, oh, well, these guys will pay us. So that's cool. We'll do that. But these guys aren't. And I don't see a point over there. So let's leave.
--:-- Noel King: Rather than looking at like the Middle East and our geopolitical kind of strategy more broadly and going, OK, does this make sense for the long term goals that we have?
--:-- Jen Williams: Because if you think about it, remember, we're supposed to be carrying out this maximum pressure strategy towards Iran. Those are the administration's words. We're supposed to be putting pressure on Iran through these, like, really harsh economic sanctions, but also through pushing back Iran on the ground in various countries where they're active.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Iraq, Syria. Remember, Iran has troops on the ground and proxy forces on the ground in Syria defending Bashar al-Assad. And that group is also aligned with Russia.
--:-- Noel King: So by pulling the U troops out of that part of Syria the Kurds then made a pact and made a deal with Assad who again is backed by Iran to ally and basically said OK Assad your forces can come in and protect us because the Americans left and we need protection against Turkey.
--:-- Jen Williams: Yeah. Right. Well, that gives Iran more of a foothold in Syria than they already had. So, yeah, you're pushing back Iran in Saudi Arabia by sending these troops and saying, hey, don't attack these oil facilities.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But then you're giving them more room to cause chaos in Syria. Like, it just doesn't make sense strategically. It's like a very schizophrenic policy.
--:-- Noel King: Because it's not being looked at as a holistic grand strategy in the way that you would hope that a leader and the commander-in-chief would do.
--:-- Jen Williams: Now, President Obama got a lot of criticism for handling the Middle East piecemeal like this and saying there wasn't a grand strategy. That was one of the biggest critiques of the Obama administration's policy in the Middle East was that it was very just like one-on-one, like we will do this in Libya. We will intervene in Libya. We will not intervene over here. We will do this. And there wasn't a grand strategy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And you're seeing the same kind of thing with Trump, right? You're seeing that it's based on his kind of gut reaction and not a well-thought-out policy.
--:-- Noel King: I don't know if that's surprising to anyone at this point. I'm pretty sure world leaders are pretty clear that he's not a strategic master.
--:-- Jen Williams: But there's another thing too, especially related to Saudi Arabia and Turkey. He made this decision to pull U.S. troops out of northeastern Syria basically on a phone call with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he's been kind of repeating Turkish talking points ever since. And basically saying, like, everything that Turkey's saying, well, this ceasefire that they announced is holding and Turkey totally wants this and the Kurds are really happy.
--:-- Noel King: Like, none of that is true. You know, it's just what Turkey wants. Erdogan is getting everything he wants from Trump.
--:-- Jen Williams: So Saudi Arabia just got what they wanted from Trump because of money. Turkey got it for whatever reason. So if I'm a world leader, I'm seeing, you know, looking at this and seeing that Trump is really easy to manipulate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you're a strong dictator, if you have money, if your goals happen to coincide with Trump's, or maybe even if they don't, you can probably talk Trump into it if you just say the right things and convince him.
--:-- Noel King: And that's what's really scary to me out of all of this, is that you could actually, if you're the president, you could turn to your CIA director, you could turn to your intelligence community and ask them these questions like, what will pulling U.S. troops out of Syria do? With respect to Iran, how does this fit with our Iran policy?
--:-- Jen Williams: Does this make sense sending these U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia? Does this make sense in terms of wanting to pull out of the Middle East, right? Like, he can make these calculated decisions, but there's no sense that that's happening.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's just doing what he thinks is the right thing in any given second, in large part based on being influenced by these dictators.
--:-- Noel King: And that's really scary. If that's how U.S. foreign policy is being made, on a whim, and because a dictator talked Trump into it, like, that's not how we're supposed to operate as the most powerful military in the world.
--:-- Jen Williams: Jen Williams is the foreign editor at Vox.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram from Today Explained.
--:-- Noel King: If you're ever listening to this podcast and you're like, man, I love this podcast, but they kind of only do one story a day. I wish they did a couple more quick hits on stuff I also need to know about.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's another podcast you can check out. It's called Need to Know from the people at Cheddar.
--:-- Noel King: Need to Know has like a two in the middle instead of a T-O. So just so you know, it's Need to Know with a two.
--:-- Jen Williams: They do the news, but like in a bit less time and a couple more stories every day, Monday through Friday.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And you can find their show right now wherever you find your podcasts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Bye.
