monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

But to just up and backstab a loyal homey!? I don't think so! Trump, he don't play dat.

Of course I don't know for a fact, but I suspect that Trump has, long ago, given the Kurds the assurance that the U.S. would not abandon them after ISIS was defeated.

Trump knows perfectly well what a conflict of interest is. In an interview with Steve Bannon for Breitbart during the campaign, Trump volunteered the fact that he has a conflict of interest in dealing with Turkey – whose authoritarian, Islamist president, Tayyip Erdogan, Trump congratulated on his recent power grab – because Trump has a "a major, major building in Istanbul." Trump has similar conflicts stemming from properties all over the world.

Trump has similar conflicts stemming from properties all over the world.

How many luxury towers does he have in Manbij? Who'd even want to go there?

Maybe you aint heard, eh, Hi? There some HOT kurdish BABES out there. Trump always goes to where the BABES are.

your usual gratuitous slander?

the Swiss usually seem so bland to me

Washington and Ankara dispute what happened during the a call on Wednesday between US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

According to the White House, during the call Mr Trump "relayed concerns that escalating violence in Afrin, Syria, risks undercutting our shared goals in Syria," and "urged Turkey to deescalate, limit its military actions, and avoid civilian casualties and increases to displaced persons and refugees”.

“He urged Turkey to exercise caution and to avoid any actions that might risk conflict between Turkish and American forces,” read the call readout.

But according to Turkish officials, no such rebuke was given. Turkish officials said Thursday that Mr Trump did not voice "concerns [about] escalating violence" over Turkey's cross-border operation against the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria.

They also said Mr Trump had assured Turkey that the US would cease supplying the Syrian Kurdish militia with weapons.

This would seem at odds with the recently announced border force plan, and with the situation on the ground.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Thursday slammed the United States for backing the Syrian Kurdish militia force.

President Trump leans into Syria’s war

Factoring in Russia and Iran, Syria is a complex geopolitical puzzle of competing local, regional and international interests in the heart of an otherwise turbulent Middle East. Policy choices often entail significant costs that, at best, are only narrowly outweighed by benefits. Outright victories and easy answers are alien to the land.

But given these difficult considerations and what is at stake for U.S. national security, President Trump deserves initial credit for striking a middle path that safeguards U.S. regional interests without overcommitting military resources.

Declaring “mission accomplished” and withdrawing U.S. troops, as his immediate predecessors did, may have been the politically expedient move, but President Trump chose to heed the advice of his generals, who cautioned him that a hasty withdrawal from Syria could mean the return of ISIS on his watch. In doing so he may have avoided the costly mistakes of both the Obama and Bush administrations, which found themselves sucked back into the cauldron of Middle Eastern conflicts when a toxic mix of Islamic extremists and diehard adversaries filled the voids left by U.S. withdrawal.

The announced Syria policy is primarily about countering an expansionist Iran...As one senior White House official privately put it to me and other analysts, “Our Iran strategy is the cornerstone around which we are building our approach to other countries in the region,” including Syria. This post-ISIS Syria strategy, as it is dubbed in Washington, is premised on not conceding hard-won geopolitical space that the United States spent blood and treasure cleansing from Islamic extremists to Iranian-backed militias.

U.S. partners in the region are stepping up in support of a more forward-leaning U.S. posture in Syria. Arab Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have quietly communicated a willingness to fund reconstruction in areas under the control of local U.S. allies, easing concerns President Trump has about “nation building” abroad. Israel’s air force has stepped up its targeting of Hezbollah and other Iranian assets in that country.

Trump broke with Justice Dept, called for release of memo

Trump broke with top officials at the Justice Department and called for the release of a classified memo purported to list Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses by the U.S. government, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Despite warnings from top officials at the agency, Trump reportedly told Attorney General Jeff Sessions through Chief of Staff John Kelly that he wants to see the memo released, believing that it will shed light on the special counsel investigation.

Earlier this week, the Justice Department warned the committee it would be "extremely reckless" to release the memo without first supplying it to the agency for review.

"Indeed, we do not understand why the committee would possibly seek to disclose this information without first consulting the relevant members of the Intelligence Community," associate Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote to the lawmakers on Thursday.

Who ya gunna believe, eh, Hi?

The Trump administration is preparing to stop supplying weapons to ethnic Kurdish fighters in Syria, the White House acknowledged Friday, a move reflecting renewed focus on furthering a political settlement to the civil war there and countering Iranian influence now that the Islamic State caliphate is largely vanquished.

Word of the policy change long sought by neighboring Turkey came Friday, not from Washington but from Ankara. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters at a news conference that President Trump had pledged to stop arming the fighters, known as the YPG, during a phone call between Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan's in a bad mood.