Trump the Terrible Dealmaker Gives Away the Store to the Kurds

Without Getting Anything in Return

The false persona of Trump as a shrewd negotiator is in full force as he has decided to aid Kurdish fighters in the Mideast without getting the Kurds to agree to anything to defuse their situation in Turkey.  The result, anger in Turkey which pushes them even further into the Russian orbit.

American military commanders have long argued for arming the Y.P.G., a Kurdish militia that contains some of the most experienced fighters among the Syrian force that is battling the Islamic State.

But Turkey has vociferously objected to such a move, insisting that the Kurdish fighters are linked with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K., which both it and the United States regard as a terrorist group.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is scheduled to meet with Mr. Trump in Washington this month, and the American decision on arming the Kurds is likely to figure prominently in the discussion. Mr. Erdogan is expected to press Mr. Trump to give Turkey and the Syrian rebels it backs a bigger supporting role in the assault on Raqqa.

See, Trump could have made the support conditional upon the Kurds making concessions in their terrorist war with Turkey, and so it would have been a win-win.  But ignorance of world politics didn’t even give Trump a chance to do some good and help an ally which is becoming more and more distanced.  Just another foreign policy screw-up from the gang that couldn’t think straight.