President Trump gives himself an A+ for his handling of Syria:
“That has nothing to do with us,” Mr. Trump said, all but washing his hands of the Kurdish fighters who have fought alongside American troops against the Islamic State for years but have now been left to fend for themselves. “The Kurds know how to fight, and, as I said, they’re not angels, they’re not angels,” he said.
Mr. Trump insisted his handling of the matter had been “strategically brilliant” and minimized concerns for the Kurds, implying that they allied with the United States only out of their own self-interest. “We paid a lot of money for them to fight with us,” he said. Echoing Mr. Erdogan’s talking points, Mr. Trump compared one faction of the Kurds to the Islamic State and he asserted that Kurds intentionally freed some Islamic State prisoners to create a backlash for him. “Probably the Kurds let go to make a little bit stronger political impact,” he said.
“Declare victory and go home” was the way to handle Vietnam, Sen. George Aiken said half a century ago. Donald Trump now becomes the first US president to actually try that. Trump being Trump, though, it’s not enough. He has to insist that our former allies were never worth fighting with in the first place. What a guy.
