The U.S. withdrawal makes Russia the new arbiter of everyone’s interests, including Israel’s.

By Jonathan Spyer, WSJ

Hassan Rouhani, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin in Ankara, Turkey, Sept. 16. Photo: Pavel Golovkin/Associated Press

Mr. Assad has already deployed his forces in Tal Tamr, Manbij, Tabqa and Kobani—towns formerly under the exclusive control of Kurdish forces. Details have begun to leak from the proposed deal cementing the surrender of the Syrian Kurds to Mr. Assad. The Turkish offensive continues but has made little progress. The U.S. is still extricating its forces and moving them to the safety of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Vladimir Putin is now the indispensable strategic arbiter in Syria. None of the remaining pieces on the broken chessboard can move without Mr. Putin’s hand. The Assad regime owes its survival to Moscow’s air intervention in September 2015. This reporter and others who have spent time in Damascus note the impunity with which Russian security and other personnel conduct themselves. They are effectively beyond the reach of the local authorities.
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Tuvan Gumrukcu, REUTERS

ANKARA (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan told U.S. President Donald Trump that Turkey will never declare a ceasefire in northeastern Syria and that it will not negotiate with Kurdish forces it is fighting in its offensive into the region.

Turkey pressed ahead with its offensive against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria on Tuesday despite U.S. sanctions and calls for it to stop, while Syria’s Russia-backed army moved on the key city of Manbij that was abandoned by U.S. forces.

The YPG, the key component of the forces who fought Islamic State, is seen by Ankara as a terrorist group linked to Kurdish separatist insurgents in Turkey.
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A wake-up call about extensive Kurdish human rights violations.

By Andrew Bostom, FPM

Uninformed savants across the political spectrum have pilloried President Trump for his eminently rational decision to draw down the U.S. troop commitment (initially, only 25, as it turns out!) to the Syrian morass (whose “dynamic” has remained largely unchanged since the late 1940s).

Most of the ire directed at Mr. Trump has to do with hand-wringing over our “Kurdish allies,” even after the President warned Turkey not to engage in its habitual behaviors — since Ataturk created his ethno-racst state — towards the Kurds. Regardless, here are a few salient points one should bear in mind about the Kurds which the hand-wringers conveniently ignore in their hagiographies:Kurdish predatory mass killings of Christians and Yazidis are well-characterized and went on for centuries. Grinding persecution continues to this day, as can be gleaned from detailed reports by both Assyrian and Yazidi organizations (here; here; here)
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By Aaron Feis, NY POST   
October 16, 2019

President Donald Trump attends a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Reuters

President Trump warned his Turkish counterpart in a letter that the world would “look upon you forever as the devil” if he didn’t find a peaceful resolution to tensions with Syria, it was revealed Wednesday.

“History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen,” wrote Trump in the letter to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, confirmed as authentic by the White House. “Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool!”

The missive is dated Oct. 9, the day that Turkish troops began their foray into northern Syria against the Kurds — longtime US allies condemned as alleged terrorists by the Turks.

“Let’s work out a good deal!” the letter begins. “You don’t want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy — and I will.”
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T. Belman. The author of this article is the Chairman of Americans for a Safe Israel, AFSI. It was written 11 months ago when Trump first announced his intended withdrawal. Surprisingly like me he did not pile on. I will comment on it tomorrow.

Trump is cleverly seeing to it that Russia needs Israel to keep Iran at bay – or lose Syria to the Iranian octopus. He is also sending other messages to the Middle East Arab countries. It was written by him in November of last year when Trump first announced his pullout.

By Mark Langfan, INN

While many pundits have gone hysterical over President Trump’s Syrian pullout, President Trump really had no choice but to employ his own “Samson Option,” one in which he knocked over everyone’s toys and theories.

Firstly, President Trump isn’t “gifting” Putin a “Christmas present,” but rather is hanging a deadly Syrian Albatross on Putin’s neck.  Without American forces east of the Euphrates and American dollars helping Syrian reconstruction, Putin faces an Iranian victory in Syria, and a Russian loss.  In fact, Russian rapprochement with Israel is a direct result of American withdrawal.  Now, Russia has only Israel to help keep Iran’s gobbling up of Syria in check.  If Putin looks to Turkey to check Iran, the unacceptably high payment will be Turkish ownership of Northern Syria.

Putin is now hopelessly up a Syrian creek without a paddle.

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– President Erdogan Asks for Negotiations With Kurds in Syria…

President Trump has played this out perfectly.  By isolating Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and effectively leaving him naked to an alliance of his enemies, Erdogan is now urgently asking for the U.S. to mediate peace negotiations with Kurdish forces.

This request happens immediately after President Trump signed an executive order [See Here] triggering the sanction authority of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.  Erdogan called the White House requesting an urgent phone call with President Trump.

After President Trump talked to Kurdish General Mazloum Kobani Abdi, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, President Trump then discussed the options available to President Erdogan.  As a result of that conversation, Erdogan requested the U.S. mediate negotiations.

T. Belman.  Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted on Sunday.  “This decision by President Trump will be a game changer – in all the wrong ways – for Turkey.” 

Not only did the removal of troops get Turkey and the Kurds to negotiate it also got the Kurds to accept autonomy only from Syria. Til then, the Kurds had demanded independance which the US didn’t support.

Thus I was right to resist piling on and to suggest there was a hidden agenda that justifies what Trump did.  Essentially he is ending the Syrian war by getting these two agreements. Without them the tail was wagging the dog. i.e., Trump was held hostage to intransigence.  A side benefit will be the normalization of relations between the US and Syria and the US and Russia and the US and Turkey.

By Richard Jack Rail, AT

It’s just too delicious.  President Trump ordered U.S. special forces out of Syria to a chorus of howling Democrats and all the old, experienced hands at State and, supposedly, the military.  (I had doubts as well.)  Democrats yelled that all hell was about to break loose.  The Pentagon pulled its hair.  Europe trembled and blanched.  The Mideast girded for something awful.

Everybody thought we had to keep our troops around so the Turks wouldn’t invade Northern Syria and kill off all the Kurds.  Everybody wanted them to negotiate with the Kurds and figured the only way to do that was little by little, by getting allies to reason with Turkey and hem and haw and maybe buy her off as in times past.  Meanwhile, we had to keep the two ancient enemies, Kurds and Turks, apart.

Negotiations would ever happen only if our troops stayed.
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The mayor of Livermore California explains Trump’s popularity and success. This is perhaps the best explanation for Trump’s popularity

Julian McCall  Published on June 16, 2018

Marshall Kamena is a registered Democrat and was elected mayor of Livermore, CA.. He ran on the democratic ticket as he knew a Bay Area city would never vote for a Republican. He is as conservative as they come. He wrote the following from an article, originally written in July 2017, by Evan Sayet and his opinion he expressed as a columnists for Townhall.com were his own and did not represent the views of Townhall.com, were mistakenly attributed to Marshall Kamena by me.

Trump’s ‘lack of decorum, dignity, and statesmanship’ By Evan Sayet in his article “He Fights”.

My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.”

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T. Belman. Keep in mind that this is a NYT article. All reporting that I have read start with the Oct 6 phone call.   They neglect to give the background which proceeded it. From the time a year ago when Trump started to remove troops, Erdogan has been pressing his demands which have not changed.

In a speech to the UN, on Sept 24/19, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an proposed ‘safe zone’ for refugees in Syria

Surely there were many discussions over the year leading up to the Oct 6 call.

In meeting the Turkish leader, the vice president is expected to reiterate President Trump’s demand for a negotiated cease-fire.

By Katie Rogers and Eric Schmitt, NYT  Updated 8:35 p.m. ET

American Special Forces soldiers in the northern Syrian city of Manbij in February 2018.Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in Ankara on Thursday to relay President Trump’s demand that Mr. Erdogan negotiate a cease-fire in Syria and to reiterate the president’s threat to impose economic sanctions if he does not comply.

The president’s sending of the delegation — to also include his national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, and the State Department’s special envoy for Syrian affairs, James F. Jeffrey — is part of a scrambled effort to wrest back control of a chaotic situation in Syria that has endangered American forces there even as they prepared to leave.
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Syria’s refugee flows, violence and instability have pushed us to the limit of our tolerance.

By Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, WSJ  Oct. 14, 2019 6:57 pm ET

Turkish civilians wave at an army convoy driving toward Syria, Oct. 9. Photo: bulent kilic/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, no country has felt the pain of the ensuing humanitarian crisis more severely than Turkey. We took in 3.6 million Syrian refugees—more than any other country—and spent $40 billion to offer them education, health care and housing. Our culture of hospitality compelled us to shoulder the burden of hosting millions of war victims with very little help from the international community.

Yet at a certain point, Turkey reached its limit. My administration repeatedly warned that we would be unable to stop refugees from flooding into the West without international financial support. Those warnings fell on deaf ears as governments, eager to avoid responsibility, portrayed as a threat what was intended as a mere statement of fact.
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The United States could soon discover, similar to Israel in the cases of Lebanon and Gaza, that while it’s very easy to leave Syria and remove the forces stationed there, the Syrian problem, not to mention the ISIS problem, won’t leave quite as easily and Washington will have to confront them again – perhaps on US soil as well.
By Prof. Eyal Zisser, TOI

The withdrawal of American forces from northern Syria and the abandonment of the Kurds to the mercy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, brings to an end Washington’s involvement in the war in Syria; a failed involvement, lacking in purpose and objective, which could have disastrous consequences for America’s friends in the region.

US President Donald Trump was right in saying that his country has never had a particular interest in Syria, a country he described as nothing but “sand and death,” divided along ethnic and tribal lines and now a playground for Russia, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and even Israel.

But American forces didn’t enter Syria to end the bloody war raging there, nor did they ever purport to be the bearers of liberty and justice for the Syrian people. They also didn’t go there – as Israel had hoped – to curb Iranian expansionism.
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by Seth J. Frantzman and Dr. Eric R. Mandel, MEPIN

After training almost 100,000 members of the Syrian Democratic Forces in eastern Syria the US suddenly announced a withdrawal, without a road map to stability.

In 2016, Donald Trump excoriated the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq in 2011 after the successful American surge in Iraq under President George W. Bush had stabilized the country. He blamed the US withdrawal for the rise of Islamic State (ISIS). His analysis was correct, that the American withdrawal led to the rise of sectarian violence, particularly at the hands of Iraqi Shi’ite strongman Nouri al-Maliki. ISIS was able to gain a greater foothold as a result.
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T. Belman. This should have been done before the pullout.  There would have been no need for Syrian troops. I always thought that Trump was using Eastern  Syria as a bargaining chip when the ultimate disposition of eastern Syria was dealt with. He obviously squandered his strong position for nothing.

Pence must not start with the proposition that Turkey has the need to create a safe zone in Syria. Turkey must make the case for its necessity.  I see no evidence of the need.  Also I read that Turkey never agreed to be respomnsible for the containment of ISIS. Surely the Syrian refugees in Turkey required international agreement as to their disposal.

Finally why not leave it to Syria and Russia “to stop the invasion of Syria?” I thought that Trump wanted to wash his hands of of the interminable war, or so he said.

Vice president says Trump spoke with Erdogan and asked him to to ‘stop the invasion;’ US is ‘simply not going to tolerate Turkey’s invasion of Syria any longer’

By SHAUN TANDON, TOI   Today, 3:33 am

Vice President Mike Pence, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House, Monday, Oct. 14, 2019, in Washington. The US is calling for an immediate ceasefire in Turkey’s strikes against Kurds in Syria, and is sending Pence to lead mediation effort (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON (AFP)  — US President Donald Trump on Monday urged his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to “stop the invasion” of Syria, Vice President Mike Pence said.
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There has been much speculation about the famous and controversial explorer’s origins.

BY Howard Sachar

Jewish filiopietists, as well as several non?Jewish historians, have speculated that the “Admiral of the Ocean Sea” was a Jew. They note that the Spanish name, Colon, was a not uncommon one in Hebrew tradition; that his father was a weaver, one of the few trades open to Jews in his native ­Genoa; that his mother, Susanna Fonterossa, was the daughter of Jacobo Fonterossa and granddaughter of Abraham Fonterossa [also common Jewish names].

The hypothesizing has been extensive, and Columbus himself doubtless was responsible for much of it. His letters in the Archives [the Archives of the Indies in Seville] drop tantalizing hints:

I am not the first admiral of my family, let them give me whatever name they please; for when all is done, David, that most prudent king, was first a shepherd and afterward chosen King of Jerusalem, and I am a servant of that same Lord who raised him to such a dignity.
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T. Belman. Let me be perfectly clear.  If the only justification for the relocating of US troops, was getting out of the Syrian War, I totally condemn it.  The area has been stable for quite some time so why fix what isn’t broken.  If the justification was that Turkey was going to invade, the US should have called Turkey’s bluff, not the other way around.

A couple of days later, Trump sent US troops to Saudi Arabia. Thus the argument that Trump raised for removing troops was bullshit. Also, he just relocated the the US troops to the south.

As a result of Trump’s removal of troops, everything has changed. So we must ask whether trump wanted this change and if that was the reason for the removal.

Turkish media, all supporting the invasion, would call the murder of Khalaf a “neutralization” of a “terrorist.”

BY SETH J. FRANTZMAN, JPOST

The US decision on October 6 threw the future of eastern Syria up in the air, leaving whoever captures it the winner of America’s withdrawal.

The withdrawal comes after years of American involvement in helping the mostly Kurdish fighters defeat ISIS, and years in which the Kurds had fended for themselves amid the Syrian civil war, a Turkish invasion, brutal atrocities by Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups, and a deal with Moscow and Damascus sealed the fate of eastern Syria. Some 200,000 people have fled their homes, a well-known Kurdish female politician, Hevrin Khalaf, her driver and several others were killed by fighters supposedly allied with Ankara on a road outside Tel Abyad in northern Syria, and uncertainty remains as thousands of ISIS supporters appear ready to flee their detention facilities.
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By Karwan Faidhi Dri, RUDAW,

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A senior leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Monday their deal with the Syrian regime for the entry of government forces into Kurdish-held territory does not cover Sare Kani (Ras al-Ain) and Gire Spi (Tal Abyad), where conflict with Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies is currently raging.

“As per what we have requested, [the deal will cover] Derik (Al-Malikiyah) until Sare Kaniye, and on the other side from Gire Spi, where there is no clash, until Kobane and Manbij,” Aldar Khalil, told SDF-affiliated Ronahi TV.

“We have to raise the Syrian flag in all these areas to show there are Syrian soldiers present. We cannot enter conflict areas,” added Khalil.
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T. Belman. Trump has been open to this deal for a couple of years now but it was rejected by the SDF. The tail was wagging the dog. Trump’s withdrawal of forces, forced the Kurds to compromise which they just did.  Also it pitted Turkey against Russia thereby stopping their budding romance. Yes some lives were lost but the result I think is good for the US and the Kurds.  The only question is how are they going to push Iran out?

Syrian army defends threatened Kurdish towns

DEBKA Oct 14, 2019 @ 9:09

President Donald Trump’s decision to pull US troops back from the Turkish-Kurdish confrontation on Sunday, Oct.13 produced a lightning realignment of big power strength on the battlefield of NE Syria: the task of protecting the Kurds from the excesses of the Turkish operation passed to Vladimir Putin and the Syrian army. By Monday, Syrian government forces had reached the Kurdish-held towns of Kobani, Manbij and Raqqa as Turkish troops were poised to move in against the first two. According to some reports, the Syrian army was already inside those towns, but, say DEBKAfile’s military sources, it can’t hold out against a Turkish advance without Russian support.

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