Donald Trump: Fall of Assad an 'Unfriendly Takeover' by Turkey

President-elect Donald Trump described the collapse of the Bashar Assad regime as the culmination of years of interference by Turkey, dismissing Assad as a “butcher” his people “would not miss,” but declaring Islamist Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan the biggest winner of the war so far in remarks on Monday.

Assad fled the country to Russia between December 7 and 8 after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaeda offshoot terrorist militia, stormed the city of Damascus, sending Assad’s troops fleeing. HTS is now in control of the Syrian government and claims it will preside over a transition to an “inclusive,” but Islamist, new Syrian regime. The administration of outgoing President Joe Biden has stated it will “recognize and fully support a future Syria government that results from a fair and “inclusive” transition process.

Some reports indicate that HTS’s jihadist leaders reached out to Erdogan as early as six months before they began to execute their plan in late November to conquer Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, which led to a rapid conquest of major cities that concluded with the near-bloodless capture of Damascus. Erdogan, who once vowed to “end the rule of the tyrant Assad” by invading Syria, openly cheered for the Syrian opposition. Turkey is believed to be much closer to another Sunni jihadist force in Syria than HTS, however – the Syrian National Army (SNA), a Turkish proxy that arose from the defunct Free Syrian Army (FSA) and has continued its warpath against the Kurdish population of northern Syria despite the fall of Assad.

The Syrian Civil War began in 2011 with protests against the decades-old Assad dynasty regime, which Bashar Assad responded to with a barbaric crackdown on dissidents. Turkey has been active militarily in Syria for year, though primarily against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ), which it claims are the same group as the Marxist terrorists of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, but the YPG, as part of the larger Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), is a close ally of America’s in the fight against the Islamic State.

“Nobody knows what the final outcome’s going to be in the region,” President-elect Trump said to reporters during a press conference on Monday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “Nobody knows who really the final – I believe it’s Turkey. And I think Turkey is very smart. … Turkey did an unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives being lost.”

Trump called Erdogan a “very smart guy” and “the one behind it,” referring to the fall of Assad. The Turks, he continued, “wanted it [Syria] for thousands of years and he [Erdogan] got it. And those people that went in are controlled by Turkey.”

Trump was asked about the hundreds of American troops operating in Syria, placed there under Biden, and suggested he did not have any interest in keeping them there.

“Well, we had 5,000 troops along the border and I asked a couple of generals,” Trump said, recalling his decision to withdraw from Syria during his first term in office. “So we have an army of 250,000 at Syria and you had an army of 400,000. They have many more people than that. Turkey is a major force, by the way. And Erdoğan is somebody I got along with great. But he has a major military force and his has not been worn out with war.”

Asking his generals, whom he did not name, how safe Americans were in that situation, the generals, Trump said, warned they would be “wiped out.”

“I moved them out because I took a lot of heat. And you know what happened? Nothing. Nothing. I saved a lot of lives,” Trump added.

Of Assad, Trump said he was a “butcher” and massacred children, recalling his decision to conduct targeted airstrikes against the Syrian military in response to reports of a chemical attack by his regime.

“That was the red line in the sand. Obama drew it and then he refused to honor what he did,” Trump recalled. “Assad killed many more children after that and Obama did nothing, but I did. I hit him with a lot of missiles.”

The Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu approvingly relayed Trump’s comments on the future of Syria, quoting his remark that Erdogan was “smart” and highlighting that Trump predicted, “I think Turkey is going to hold the key to Syria.”

Turkey has been actively attacking the YPG and related Kurdish forces for years in northern Syria, in a war theater that remained largely detached from the larger civil war against Assad. Following the attack by HTS on Aleppo, however, the Turkish proxy SNA launched a plan it called “Dawn of Freedom,” a military operation against the SDF that persists to this day. The Biden administration has done little to contain it; a visit to Turkey by Secretary of State Antony Blinken resulted in a brief ceasefire that lasted a little under a week in the disputed city of Manbij.

With little support from Washington, the SDF is reportedly planning to send a delegation to negotiate with HTS, which has an awkward, at best, relationship with Turkey. Kurdish areas of Syria have risen the anti-Assad opposition flag and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi has stated that his group has no reason to be in conflict with HTS.

“At the outset of the incident, HTS informed us that our territories are not their target,” Abdi said on Thursday, speaking to the Kurdish outlet Ronahi TV. “We have agreements with HTS regarding Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor.”

Abdi has warned that Turkish intervention has “halted” joint U.S.-SDF efforts against the Islamic State.

“Generally, the effectiveness of our forces and those of the coalition against ISIS diminishes when we are focused on protecting civilians and our communities, as efforts are redirected toward the ongoing conflict,” he explained in a recent interview. “This is why I say that if the fighting continues and intensifies, it will play into ISIS’s hands.”

The dispute between Turkey and Kurdish forces has long been a complicated situation for the United States, as Kurdish forces have helped American troops fight ISIS, while Turkey is a critical NATO ally. During his first term as president, Trump had a mixed record of supporting Kurdish forces, acting with American interests at the forefront. The withdrawal of American troops from Syria, for example, was seen by supporters of Kurdish forces as a move that could hurt the Kurdish effort. Trump did not hesitate to support the SDF and Kurdish forces when he felt American interests backed that decision, however, such as in 2019 when he threatened sanctions on Turkey if the Turkish military continued to attack Syrian Kurdistan.

Abdi, the SDF commander, prominently thanked Trump that year after his intervention resulted in a ceasefire with the Turkish military.

“We THANK President Trump for his tireless efforts that stopped the brutal Turkish attack and jihadist groups on our people,” Abdi said in a statement on social media.

While Trump expressed gratitude for the support from the SDF, he issued a statement emphasizing that American interests, in his view, did not necessarily require Washington to take a side.

“Turkey, Syria, and all forms of the Kurds have been fighting for centuries. We have done them a great service and we have done a great job for all of them,” he said. “And now we’re getting out. … Let someone else fight over this long blood-stained sand.”

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