Turkey’s Erdogan has backtracked from his defiance of Trump and the US over his invasion of Syria. First, he claimed that he wouldn’t meet with VP Pence and SecState Pompeo. Then he caved in that defiance and met with them ... the result of which was an announced ceasefire with the Kurds in Syria ... see: Yahoo News Story and Video. The terms of this deal, at first blush, seem a win for Trump and our allies, the Kurds. Maybe so ... we will see how well the Turkish follow-through is.
But, if Erdogan does live up to this capitulation, it would seem Trump and company had a pretty big hammer in these discussions ... for Erdogan is a very proud and powerful man. I would love to know exactly what this hammer was. Were US economic sanctions enough? Or did Putin or Xi come charging over the hill to Trump’s rescue?
On Wednesday, 129 House Republicans voted for a Democrat-sponsored resolution condemning Trump’s decision to pull our troops out of Syria after Turkey invaded. Only 60 GOPers voted against this premature resolution. I suspect that, given a re-vote, things would come out differently today.
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