Summary
Has there ever been a foreign policy move that has produced more crises more quickly? Regardless of whether the cease-fire holds -- the Turks describe it as a "pause" in their operations -- President Donald Trump has allowed Turkey to unleash its forces on Syria, resulting in the abandonment of the Syrian Kurds and the empowerment of Bashar Assad, Vladimir Putin and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Trump was acceding to Turkey's wishes, but now he has also poisoned America's relations with that country.
Trump's moves in Syria are part of a Middle Eastern policy that, as Martin Indyk explains in Foreign Affairs, is in total disarray. Indyk, who has held virtually every senior Middle East job in the U.S. government, describes how, in case after case, the Trump administration dispensed with regional experts, reversed long-standing policy and assumed that its knowledge-free approach would yield innovative new results.
Policy toward Iran is similarly erratic.
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