U.S. President Donald Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Republican senators meeting in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington, Nov. 13, 2019 (AP photo by Patrick Semansky).
Last week’s White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan included plenty of compliments and praise—mostly one way, from Trump to Erdogan—but it failed to resolve the most serious issues hampering U.S.-Turkey ties. Trump, as usual, created some theater by inviting five Republican senators who take a much tougher view on Turkey to press Erdogan about the recent Turkish invasion of northern Syria and attacks on Kurdish forces allied with the U.S. in the fight against the Islamic State, until Trump abandoned them. Erdogan reportedly responded by showing the senators an anti-Kurdish propaganda video on [...]
Former Bolivian President Evo Morales waves as he gets out of a Mexican Air Force plane in Mexico City (Photo by Jair Cabrera Torres for dpa via AP Images).
In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein and Frederick Deknatel talk about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to the White House, and Donald Trump’s “worst of both worlds” approach to Turkey. They also discuss the fall of Bolivian President Evo Morales and why the events there are too complicated to easily categorize as either a coup or a revolution. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers [...]
Vice President Mike Pence and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Presidential Palace for talks on the Kurds and Syria, in Ankara, Turkey, Oct. 17, 2019 (AP photo by Jacquelyn Martin).
After eight years of chaos, it is hard to know which moment in the history of Syria’s brutal civil war-turned-proxy-conflict will ultimately stand out as the most egregious. There can be little doubt, though, that President Donald Trump’s sudden decision last week to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and abandon America’s Kurdish allies in the militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces—their most reliable partners on the ground in the campaign against the Islamic State—will rank as one of the most spectacular failures in the history of American foreign policy. The White House’s turnabout by tweet in Syria has [...]
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