The U.S. and Russia Relationship with Syria

There are potential consequences from deciding to remove U.S. forces in Syria. Recently President Trump has removed U.S. troops from Northern Syria, and there are already unintended consequences from this decision. President Trump’s decision to withdraw forces in Syria was defended by saying he was ending “forever wars”. The main concern from this removal is that ISIS is going to re-emerge. This has allowed though for Turkey to launch an offensive against the Kurdish forces.

The first issue with the U.S. taking our forces from Northern Syria is that this has left the Kurds with no one to defend them. The Kurdish forces had allied with U.S. so that we could join forces in taking down ISIS. The Kurdish forces have now allied with Syria, which is not allied with the U.S., so therefore the Kurds have protection from Turkey now. Syria is helping them by liberating Turkish forces and their hired mercenaries that are trying to destroy the Kurds. Though, the Kurds run a third of the country so now Assad gets to move his forces into this part of the country. Him aligning himself with them now allows for him to gain more power. Now though there are new potential for a war to start with Turkey and Syria in Syria’s 8 year civil war.

As Assad’s power and influence flourish’s though so does his main patrons, Russia. Russian forces are now taking over abandoned U.S. military bases in Manbij since the U.S. announced they are removing their forces in the main city of northern Syria. Kurdish forces which were backed by the U.S. took over here in 2016 since ISIS previously took over here. Turkey also longed for taking over Manbij so they have used this as a sticking point for not liking the Kurds. Russia now is self claiming and proving that they are the main rulers in the Middle East, and they have done this because President Vladimir Putin has visited Saudi Arabia and the United States Emirates.

Another problem that has occurred from this is the fact that ISIS prisoners are now escaping. After a Turkish shelling around 800 ISIS supporters attacked prison guards and escaped from the detention camp. President Trump has tried to put American’s minds at ease by saying they can be recaptured and sent back to detention camps, but that is not helping matters. Fact of the matter is, is that there are ISIS fighters and supporters out now running around putting fear into the minds of Americans. There are now NATO tensions because of all that is happening. Turkey happens to be an ally of NATO, as is the United States. United States officials are trying to defend their withdrawal action in Syria by saying that they could not engage in a military confrontation with Turkey since they happen to be NATO allies. Many other NATO allies though are making it their own agenda to punish Turkey for their actions in the conflict. NATO now has to address and try to bring peace to the organization for Turkey’s actions.

Since the U.S. and Turkey were once allies there is an open secret that the U.S. stores around fifty nuclear warheads in an airbase at Turkey’s Incirlik. Now there is a major concern about what would happen if these warheads get into the arms of the wrong person. There is a concern about our weapons being used against us. There needs definitely to be a quick move to get our bombs out of there, especially since the United States and Turkey are on opposite sides with the Syria debacle. Syrian Democratic Forces said that since the United States forces have left there is now a potential for ethnic minorities to be ethnically cleansed, since they do not have the U.S. there to defend them anymore.

Another potential problem from the United State removing forces in Syria is now there is a chance of the Islamic State or enemies of the United States to try and regain control of oil fields. This could cause our gas prices to go up and this would have a direct impact especially on Americans. There is also the chance that we are going to potentially lose our allies since we moved out of Syria, because of some of the problems that have occurred. There is a domino effect occurring because of the decision to remove U.S. forces from northern Syria. The consequences that have already happened and the potential consequences that could occur are going to bring change to the United States no matter what.