Syria
I’m not sure what to make of it. We sell out the Kurds, Brits, French and Syrian rebels to Presidents Assad, Putin and Erdogan. The French and the British say they will stay the course, but President Trump declares “mission accomplished” and hightails out of there, and Vladimir Putin says “hooray, don’t worry my good buddy, we’ll have the situation under control”.
I’m not clear why we wanted our troops there in the first place. We know Assad is a terrible butcher, but the opposition had a lot of elements from Al Qaeda and ISIS alongside the “good guys”. Obama made a couple of mistakes with red lines to Assad that he could/would not back up and pulling the troops out of Iraq when the Iraqi government refused to renew their legal protections. But once you have successfully backed the Kurds in Syria and Iraq who have fought shoulder to shoulder with you, how do you then expose them to the worst kind of vengeance from Assad and the Turks?
It seems like President Trump has just lost any sense of perspective and judgment if there ever was any. General Mattis has headed for the exits, fed up with Trump so now who’s going to be in charge of the Armed Forces? The loss of US credibility and trust from the President’s impetuous decision is enormous.
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 12/20/18