“...who now credits Defense Secretary James Mattis for explaining what should have been obvious all along, and who sounded the retreat:”
heh heh heh
As a practical matter, Mathis informed the Turks that they would not be bombing the Kurds.
The question was whether or not the Turkish air force would be shot down in the process of not bombing the Kurds
Probably didnt want their planes shot down.
Did someone send Erdogan a recent Google Earth picture of the newly “remodeled” Shayrat air base in Syria?
Erdogan is going to screw around til we have to kick him out of NATO.