I thought that Erdogan told Trump that Turkey’s military coming into that disputed territory. So should we have allowed our small number of forces to be slaughtered or fought against the Kurds with our NATO “ally” Turkey?
Agree! In a Jerusalem Post article I found, “The Kurds, Assad and the Shape of a Future Syria,” (10/17/2019) the reporter also stated that the Syrian Kurds had already began to reestablish relations with Assad last year. They accepted an invitation to meet with him and as a consequence had set up an office in Damascus. Their goal is not really to have an independent state but an autonomous region within Syria. So the idea that we had abandoned the Kurds is a bit of a sham. They only Kurdish group we probably surprised was the PKK and they are listed by the US government as a terrorist group.
It needs to be restated as well that the US troop withdraw is ONLY along the Turkish/Syrian border. We still maintain control over the oil fields and the Jordanian border in the southeast. We have also (or are in the process) of transferring the worst of the ISIS prisoners to newly built facilities in Iraq where they will be tried for war crimes.
I think it is also interesting how this Syrian episode has revealed who in the Republican party is ready to jump ship once they believe there is a shift against the President. I have noted how both Lindsey Graham and McConnell took a negative stance even though they must have known the real situation on the ground.