President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence, participates in an Armed Forces Welcome Ceremony in honor of the 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Monday, Sept. 30, 2019, at Summerall Field, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, VA (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Of the President’s decision in Syria, Pat Buchanan writes at his blog (abridged):
President Donald Trump could have been more deft and diplomatic in how he engineered that immediate pullout from northeastern Syria.
Yet that withdrawal was as inevitable as were its consequences.
A thousand U.S. troops and their Kurdish allies were not going to dominate indefinitely the entire northeast quadrant of a country the size of Syria against the will of the Damascus regime and army.
Had the U.S. refused to vacate Syrian lands on Turkey’s demand, a fight would be inevitable, whether with Turkey, Damascus or both. And this nation would neither support nor sustain a new war with Turks or Syrians.
And whenever the Americans did leave, the Kurds, facing a far more powerful Turkey, were going to have to negotiate the best deal they could with Syria’s Bashar Assad.
Nor was President Recep Erdogan of Turkey going to allow Syrian Kurds to roost indefinitely just across his southern border, cheek by jowl with the Turkish Kurds of the PKK.
It was Russia that stepped in to broker the deal whereby the Kurds stood down and let the Syrian army take over their positions and defend Syria’s border regions against the Turks.
Today, the Middle East and world have been awakened to the reality that when Trump said he was ending everlasting commitments and bringing U.S. troops home from “endless wars,” he was not bluffing.
Where the Americans spent much of the Cold War ruminating about an “agonizing reappraisal” of commitments to malingering allies, this time the Yanks may be deadly serious.
This time, the Americans may really be going home.
Every nation that today believes it has an implied or a treaty guarantee that the U.S. will fight on its behalf should probably recheck its hole card.
Read more here.
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