So we avoided that disaster. It seems as if critics of the president are determined to paint his decision to get out of the way of Turkey's invasion of Syria to establish a border buffer zone as a total disaster despite avoiding that own-goal of making our NATO ally Turkey an instant enemy rather than hoping we can outlast Erdogan who is slowly eroding our alliance.
Huh?
Since the outbreak of Syria's brutal civil war, the United States has stated several objectives -- destroying Islamic State extremists, easing from power President Bashar al-Assad and limiting Iran's influence.
In just one decision, President Donald Trump may have undone all three.
How did Trump undo three objectives?
One, ISIL already lost its caliphate. And everyone who isn't ISIL in Syria has an incentive to kill those jihadis who still roam around. Turkey hardly wants ISIL to replace Kurds along the Turkish border.
And I'm not even sure there was a massed ISIL killer prison break to blame on Trump, as the media has breathlessly reported. Some reports say it was an escape by family members and supporters rather than actual ISIL fighters. So forget that calamity for now.
Two, America has no stomach to overthrow Assad. We never have seriously tried to do that. This decision does not make that goal any less likely than it was. Strike two.
As for the third disaster of limiting Iran's influence, explain how we enhanced Iran's influence? Iran's influence comes from Assad's need for Iran's help to stay in power. Honestly this crisis could go either way on that issue.
With Assad having less need to attack more cooperative Kurds (because the Kurds want Assad's help against Turkey) to restore Assad's authority, doesn't Iran's influence drop? And doesn't a broke Iran unable to spend as much in Syria have to spend more to add Turkey to the list of foes to fight?
And doesn't Turkey's invasion put Putin in a dilemma, wanting to back Assad and back Turkey to split it from NATO?
I say that is strike three on the disaster at-bat. I guess some people just don't like Trump playing the game at all. And they'll do what it takes to paint a bloody disaster:
In the news media’s frantic desire to hype every decision made by President Trump as the literal end of the world, their rush to judgement often overlooks accurate sourcing. The latest potential fake news story comes from ABC News, who may have used a video from a Kentucky gun range, and passed it off as Syrian gunfire, in two separate stories, Sunday and Monday.
Also, don't forget that Turkey's Erdogan--not Trump--made the decision to invade Syria. Trump decided not to fight Turkey and decided not to leave our troops in the way when the Turks came across the border.
How would a US-Turkey clash make things better? Would a fourth much more important objective of not letting Erdogan totally wreck Turkey's NATO membership have been attained by a war?
This is not a total disaster. It may work out fine. Or at least as good as it can get given the complicated battlefield, our limited options, and our low appetite for war there.
Right now I won't say Trump made the best decision. It's complicated over there.
But he may have made the least bad decision. And I don't hear his critics say what a good decision would be considering the risks of escalation, given their insistence that Trump made a monumentally bad choice.
Hey, I'm just glad we didn't further militarize the struggle back in 2012, about 400,000 deaths and several new armed participants ago.
And note that Turkey's action has probably spoiled any efforts (which I figured would likely fail in the long run) to get Russia as an ally in place of America.
Again, work the problem.
UPDATE: Rethink your conclusion that Trump abandoned the Kurds. What price were we to pay to fight Turkey over the Kurds?
