Donald Trump’s tactics betray allies, reward Vladimir Putin

Smoke rises over the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain, after multiple air strikes. Picture: Getty Images.

US President Donald Trump insisted that he was projecting strength when he blindsided foreign allies and his own administration by announcing that American troops would leave Syria.

Now, far from an orderly withdrawal, they are having to cut and run in a humiliating retreat from their Nato ally, Turkey.

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Russia and Syria, meanwhile, are advancing from the south, raising the prospect of 1000 American soldiers being caught between opposing armies.

Turkish-backed Syrian fighters evacuate a wounded comrade near the border town of Ras al-Ain, as Turkey and it's allies continued their assault on Kurdish-held border towns in northeastern Syria. Picture: AFP

Just as Washington was warned, hundreds of inmates have escaped from an Islamic State detention facility and Turkish troops are taking up positions along the M4 motorway to Iraq, used as a supply route for American troops.

The chaos of the withdrawal signals weakness to friends and enemies alike. Russia has been seeking a US retreat from Syria ever since troops were sent there. Now Turkey has achieved with military muscle what Moscow could not do by persuasion.

Mr Trump announced the troops’ withdrawal on Twitter a week ago, a day after his phone call with President Erdogan in which he pressed Turkey’s plans. Caught off guard, the Pentagon scrambled to manage messaging and matters on the ground, insisting that Washington was not giving its blessing to a Turkish invasion. Only 50 American troops would be withdrawn at first, the Pentagon said, and last Monday they left two Arab towns on the Syrian border, in effect opening the door to Turkish troops to invade.

On Friday a long-established US military base in the Kurdish town of Kobani was “bracketed” by Turkish shelling as they tried to gauge their target, a move officials acknowledged must have been deliberate. Two days later US troops withdrew from Ain Issa as Turkish forces pressed into Syria along the M4, threatening to cut off troops’ access to fellow Americans stationed to the east, closer to the Iraqi border.

Ain Issa is 32km inside Syria, the depth of territory Turkey is seeking to seize as a buffer zone along the border.

Announcing the full withdrawal, Mark Esper, the US Defence Secretary, said that the Turkish attack was extending farther south than they had been told, an admission of Washington’s lack of influence over its Nato ally.

Only on Saturday Mr Esper had said that Mr Trump had ordered his troops to move south out of the way of the Turkish advance. On Sunday he admitted that they were trapped and would have to leave northern Syria altogether.

British and French special forces will have to do the same: their presence in northern Syria relies on the logistical support and air power provided by the US, both there and in Iraq.

The Kurds who fought ISIS will swiftly find themselves outgunned by Nato’s second-largest army. Russia has played powerbroker between the Kurds and Damascus. The US, meanwhile, is nowhere in sight.

The Times