Donald Trump sure has made the rest of the world respect us:
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected a U.S. offer to mediate a cease-fire between Turkish forces and Kurdish militants in northeastern Syria….“The terrorists should drop their weapons and leave the area that we have identified as the safe zone,” he said in a speech Wednesday to the Turkish parliament. He vowed to press forward with the campaign to rout Kurdish-led fighters, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, from a wide swath of territory along the border.
For better or worse, the US has no influence in Syria anymore. Turkey does. Russia does. Syria itself does. But not us.
UPDATE: It gets worse:
President Erdogan says he will refuse to meet with VP Pence, who is due to travel to Turkey to argue for a ceasefire in the ongoing Syria conflict. https://t.co/G6HAQL3EII
— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) October 16, 2019
