[rdcbn]

There are two ways of looking at things

One is your perspective which has merit

The other is that the US wished to retain main influence in Northern Syria which it has now lost to Syria, Russia and Iran

Not sure this is a good thing or a bad thing.

Also not sure it’s a good thing to have Syria and Turkey at each other’s throats. Time will tell.

Russia has clout in both Turkey and Syria as well as Iran and PKK is aligned with Iran who is backing Assad so it’s very plausible that this whole exercise was a Putin engineered gambit to force the US military to exit Syria

Then again, Russia has always had Syria as a client state and the world did not end and Islamic Iran has always been aligned with Russia and hostile to the US so it’s just back to the status quo.

The huge losers in this are the Europeans who should have stepped up to the plate and gave support but who instead hid under their desks. They will come to regret this and will pay a huge price at some point in the future

[Alberta's Child]

The other is that the US wished to retain main influence in Northern Syria which it has now lost to Syria, Russia and Iran.

No offense, but do you have any idea how ridiculous this sounds? Syria is a sovereign nation, and the U.S. had no more right to "retain main influence" anywhere in its borders than China has to "retain main influence" anywhere in the U.S.

Just read it differently to see how ludicrous that is:

The Mexican government is opposed to the Trump administration's deportation policy because it wishes to retain main influence in the Southwestern United States which it has now lost to the United States.

WTF?

[Spktyr]

The last time Turkey got stuck into a seemingly endless war, they got disgusted when it was over. They then promptly had a civil war/war of independence, threw out the theocratic arsehats, forcibly modernized their country, forced secularization and democracy and many other admirable things came as a result of that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atatürk’s_Reforms

Erdogan’s been trying to roll back the Ataturk Reforms, but getting stuck into an endless war in Syria is likely to get him shot and the Reforms restored.

[silverleaf]

What were we going to do with our “ influence’” in Northern Syria?
A handful of US troops with a no-offensive combat ROE?
The only value of our influence is/was to retain Kurdish support fir fighting ISIS and - eventually - challenging Assad.

In return we are supposed to look like we are going to support an independent Kurdistan carved out of the Syrian and Iraqi oilfields, Turkey, and Iran,
Not. Gonna, Happen,

Trump is finally an honest man,