I've lived long enough to watch an incumbent US President casually and obscenely sell out allied freedom fighter to a fellow autocrat, I write of course of the withdrawal of US Forces from Syria and the green light given to Turkish Tyrant Erdogan to invade & route the Kurds.
These would be the same Kurds who undertook most of the front line fighting that reduced ISIS to a bloody pulp. And now those same fighters are naught but cannon fodder for Turkish Tanks. The whole world has seen in glorious vivid color, the value of a US Guarantee, Ghod Almighty Help this Country the next time we need to forge alliances or even recruit proxies.
Like any other ethnic enclave in the region, I'm sure the Kurds have a lot to answer for, but the ancient foreign policy principle of "My Enemy's Enemy, Is My Friend", does not absolve the recruiting party of interest & some responsibility towards the proxies duly recruited. I'm not saying we should redraw the map in the region for the Kurds, but acting as a good faith diplomatic sponsor and arbiter is well within reason. But then, this is Trump we are talking about, "subtle" isn't his thing, he doesn't do patience well while enabling his fellow authoritarians is a knee jerk reaction at this point.
Right now the big victors in this mishaugas is Vladimir Putin is it HE that will be the arbiter and interested diplomatic sponsor when the negotiations commence, he has Assad in his back pocket and has been assiduously courting Erdogan. This pretty much puts Russia in the driver's seat in the Middle East, which is good news for no one most especially Israel. Clearly the Israelis who have a cynical high regard for Trump (at least until this week) have to be worried, if Trump can throw over the Kurds, can Jerusalem be far behind?
Who knows quite frankly....?
To me though, this is a curtain raiser, Trump sold out the Kurds and if he can do sans paying a political price he'll sell out NATO next, watch for it. In which case I do think that its time the citizens starting quizzing GOP candidates for congress exactly what they will do if President Trump attempts to withdraw from NATO?
Those answers ought to be noteworthy.
The only thing I'm grimly looking forward to is Stephen Kinzer's column tomorrow where no doubt the Kurdish sell out will be greeted with joy and as a sign that the American Imperium is at last over ...Anyone wanna take a bet that Stephen will bring up the CIA sponsored 1953 Iranian Coup...again?
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