Today, John Bolton appeared to reverse President Trump’s decision to rapidly withdraw the American forces in Syria, by stating the US would remain until the Islamic State is defeated and the Turkish regime guarantees the safety of the Kurds.
The upshot is that the US military presence in Syria will continue, possibly for years.
Apparently, President Trump’s announcement that ISIS was defeated was an alternative fact.
Given that we are back in Syria this week, a few questions to discuss:
Question 1: Do you think Bolton has actually made policy or will this get reversed again?
Question 2: Who’s running US foreign policy at present?
Question 3: (For Trump supporters). Most of you were delighted when Trump announced the withdrawal. Given that US troops are staying are you:
A: More delighted
B: Delighted just the same
C: Less delighted
D: All of the above
Question 4: How would you evaluate US handling of Syria in the past few weeks
A: Brilliantly professional
B: A group working hard out figure out a tough situation
Almost everything Trump has done lately is a deversion to change the narrative. He has no interest in foreign policy or how his actions impact current events.
So stupid. Yet another example of Trumps impulsive recklessness. He literally caused his SecDef to resign in protest in large part due to this. Maybe he can beg Mattis to return now.
Bolton was speaking to reporters in Israel where he had met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Israel had not been pleased with the US rapid withdrawal plan.
Asked for a response in Camp David, the President said he had never said that US troops would be withdrawn rapidly. This contradicts the President’s previous statements.
That’s an excellent question, getting to the heart of the matter.
History of Trump says that Sean Hannity and Fox & Friends speak for President Trump: what they say on TV becomes what the president says later.
Advisors like Bolton try to steer Trump by making their views known on TV, hoping that Trump will think they make more sense to Trump than Steve Doocy or Sean Hannity, who’ve made their pitches on TV.
Throw in a few Bugs Bunny cartoons and some new crazy Geico commercials, and you have the Trump policy setting mechanism distilled.
I am more interested in replies from people who are serious supporters of either the populist agenda that Trump ran on or the whatever’s-good-for-the-oil-industry agenda that Trump has governed under.
What has been missing are any of the people who celebrated that it was a good thing to get our army out of Syria. Where are they?
This is why people say Trump is the worst president of all time. It’s not that he’s doing truly evil things like Andrew Jackson or leaving the nation in diaster like Buchanan, he’s just fundamentaly terrible at doing the necessary jobs of the president.
Donald Trump had a media presence – both on TV and books that gave him the reputation of being a great businessman. The reality of Trump’s business work was rather different; which is why US banks stopped loaning him money early in this century.
Carly Fiorina also had great press. I am curious whether you experienced her leadership first hand either at Bell Labs/Lucent or at HP. I was a consultant at HP during the Compaq merger and she was an imperious leader; not one who listened to her team. Do have a different view?
We all know how successful the HP/Compaq merger was.
Could be. Or a serious case of carpel tunnel perhaps. A more likely answer is that they have not yet been told what to think or how to react by the Ministers of Propaganda that do their thinking for them.