Twenty-nine years ago, on July 25, 1990, US Ambassador April Glaspie held a fateful meeting with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Hussein's main objective in the meeting was the limits, if any, the George H.W. Bush administration would impose on his forces should they invade the pro-Western Kuwait. To this end, Hussein incorporated transparent clues regarding Iraq's intentions to act should his economic and territorial demands not be met by its Kuwaiti neighbor.
To Hussein's surprise, Glaspie avoided taking a stance on the conflict, which she referred to as an inter-Arab conflict that had nothing whatsoever to do with the US and its strategy in the region. It was in this manner that Iraq understood it had been given a green light to occupy Kuwait. It should have no surprise, then, when two weeks later, on Aug. 2, 1990, Hussein's forces began their invasion of Kuwait. The fact that the green light ultimately turned red in such a way that proved devastating for Iraq only serves to emphasize just how vital it was for the American superpower to clearly demarcate in real time the red lines that, if crossed, would see Washington respond with full force.
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Nearly 30 years after the Gulf War, we are once again hearing the same refrain – this time in connection to Trump's decision to withdraw the small US force stationed in northern Syria. As with Glaspie's conversation with Hussein, so too did Trump in his Oct. 6 phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan avoid attempting to deter Ankara from taking advantage of the new situation on the ground, thereby giving it by all intents and purposes a green light to attack the Kurdish enclave.
Trump's desire to minimize US military involvement in arenas he deems to be of secondary or marginal importance, among them Syria and Afghanistan, was and remains a central pillar of his policy. As a result, the pullout from northern Syria is to his mind something of a promise kept to his electorate. But it appears the US president was wrong in his assessment of how the nation and the world would respond.
Indeed, the piercing criticism from Capitol Hill, and in particular from the president's fellow Republicans in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, of his decision to abandon America's Kurdish partners in the struggle against the Islamic State both surprised and frustrated the American hegemon, exposing weaknesses in the decision-making process at the highest level of the US government. And so despite the fact that Trump quickly came to his senses, imposing economic sanctions on and issuing blatant threats against Ankara, it was Trump's decision to relay the message to Erdoğan in a highly undiplomatic manner that made the tone and not the content of the message the focus of internal and international debate. This despite the fact that the sanctions did, in fact, serve their purpose, paving the way for the formulation of a ceasefire agreement that has thus far helped prevent the realization of the nightmare scenario of ethnic cleansing in the Kurdish stronghold critics of the withdrawal hoped to avoid.
Moreover, the fact that the withdrawal was met with widespread public and congressional protest raised questions regarding the 45th president's ability to lead a united Republican camp ahead of a presidential election in the face of challenges at home, in the form, for example of the ongoing efforts to impeach Trump. Yet on this particular front, it appears the threat posed to Trump's status as the undisputed leader of the Republicans is negligible at best.
As the electorate's decision will be based primarily on the assessment of the executive branch's function and achievements both domestically and abroad, the current Democratic frontrunners set to challenge Trump – Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) – don't appear to pose much of a threat. Warren appears to be particularly vulnerable to attack given her support for policies that would befit a Scandinavian welfare state and are light-years away from the firmly established American ethos of individualism and free enterprise.
The question then is whether the Oval Office will take advantage of the window of opportunity afforded to it by its weak Democratic opponent, and whether America's disengagement from the Syrian battlefield will create a chain reaction that will force not just its rival but its partners and allies to draw the necessary conclusions and reorganize in light of the administration's determination to withdraw further and further into the American continent.
