Why Baghdadi's death is actually a counterpoint to Trump's Syria strategy

As the dust settles around the death of the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, questions are beginning to surface about the role of Kurdish forces in the event.

It was a U.S. military operation, though Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who served as the House Intelligence Committee chair, told Jake Tapper during an appearance Sunday on CNN's State of the Union "there's no way we could have done this" without Kurdish forces fighting alongside U.S. forces against ISIS all these years. Rogers added that President Trump "should understand how impactful that was," and "that you can't do it without those allies of which candidly we just walked away from," referring to Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria, leaving Kurdish-led forces to face a Turkish incursion, that has since been slowed by a cease-fire.

Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign, concurred.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

It's unclear what role the Kurds may have played in helping the U.S. locate Baghdadi before his death — Defense Secretary Mark Esper wouldn't definitively tell Tapper on State of the Union if the Kurds participated in the U.S. operation, but he did admit there was help from "outside partners," leaving Tapper to speculate he was referring to the Kurds, who are Washington's strongest ally in the region.