The Syrian civil war was planned by the West and did not lead to the “rise’ of ISIS, Bush and obama policy failures in Iraq led to the rise of ISIS, The US military released the elusive mysterious leader of ISIS from an Iraq war prisoner camp,
ISIS became a sharp instrument the Clinton/ obama State Department and perhaps “ other” nations thought could be used to tear Syria apart and hobble an Assad-Russian defeat of Western backed regime change, The barbaric cruelties of ISIS were of less concern than toppling Assad.
My two cents, Ashamed the US military was used this way before Trump
Thanks for the insightful comments.
Trump was right — he was left a mess by Obama.
> Bush and obama policy failures in Iraq led to the rise of ISIS <
I put most of the blame for this mess on George W. Bush. ISIS operated out of western Iraq and eastern Syria. Saddam Hussain never, ever would have allowed that.
Bush did ISIS a big favor by getting rid of Saddam. Just like Carter did the mullahs a big favor by getting rid of the Shah.
Bush and Carter, the best you can say about them is that they naively ignored the law of unintended consequences. But I would not be so kind. I consider them both fools whose meddling made ugly situations much, much worse.
It’s nice to see a rational case supporting Trump’s actions. The media makes this out to be like we left the Brits stranded on the beaches of Normandy after we got tired of the fight. The truth is Turkey was coming in with or without our approval, and unless we wanted to get into a fight with a NATO ally over some scraps of sand in a worthless country, our best bet was to get clear of the unfolding disaster.
Heck, if this was such an obvious abandonment of allies, why didn’t the French or British or the EU or UN rush in to block Turkey? The cold hard truth is that it was all posturing and bluster by people complaining about this. In war, allied troops shift and cede occupied territory with other allies all the time. Granted, Turkey isn’t a model country, but it is our ally. We are in a mutual defense treaty with them. Getting into a scuffle with them over this would be the height of wasted American resources, including the lives of our men and women in uniform.
Trump acted rationally, and I would add he got the added benefit of putting Democrats on the side for wanting to keep up the endless wars.
All that said, Trump might have done the PR side a little bit better, or moved our troops out well ahead of the Turks, rather than the day before, but I trust he knows more than I do on this, so my criticism is minimal. As long as my son doesn’t have to fight as a proxy in someone else’s civil war...