There are countless possible explanations, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Donald Trump decided to allow Turkey to attack the Kurds in northern Syria in order to crowbar the news cycle away from his impeachment. But as I’ve been writing from the beginning, Trump always makes things worse for Trump. Instead of tamping down the impeachment story, he’s merely augmenting the justifications for his constitutional removal from office.
Apart from the bloody foolishness of his snap decision, which I’ll cover here presently, my first reaction was this: What did Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a fellow autocrat, offer Trump in return for abandoning U.S. allies in the region, both the Kurds and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)? What kind of election interference did Erdogan pledge to Trump? Or did Trump cave because his beloved Trump Tower Istanbul was threatened with demolition? Here’s a big one: What if Trump made this decision without all of his marbles in attendance?
