Why did President Donald Trump agree to remove Troops from Syria in order to allow Turkey to do a limited military strike in the region? According to one report, it might have been partially to get off a bad phone call.
NBC News reported that a phone conversation between Trump and Turkey’s leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was heated, primarily because Trump did not have a one-on-one sitdown with Erdogan during the United Nations General Assembly last month.
An official within the White House said that Trump had met with at least a dozen leaders during that event, and simply didn’t have time to meet with everyone.
Erdogan took the limited schedule of Trump’s as an insult, and insisted on a phone call. When the two spoke, Erdogan couldn’t be placated with an agreed upon publicized meeting between the two leaders.
“He was really slighted. So Trump tried to smooth it over,” a former U.S. official told NBC.
Donald Trump's Syria decision means he's telling our Kurdish allies who helped us beat ISIS:
1- You can't count on the US
2- You're expendable
3- It's ok if Turkey slaughters youWe need to see the transcript of his Erdogan phone call.
This makes no sense. pic.twitter.com/oSvROOsNFe
— Joel Rubin (@JoelMartinRubin) October 7, 2019
According to the report, in an attempt to appease Erdogan, Trump agreed that a “moderate incursion” into Syria would be acceptable to him. Trump did warn Erdogan against a larger military operation in the region.
“Basically Donald Trump was trying to get Erdogan off the phone, because he was mad that he didn’t get to have the one-on-one with him here in New York a couple of weeks ago and said, ‘Okay, go into Syria,'” MSNBC’s Willie Geist said on “Morning Joe” Tuesday morning, Raw Story reported.
There has been bipartisan condemnation against Trump’s decision to remove U.S. troops from Syria to allow for the incursion by Turkey, particularly since the Kurdish soldiers that Erdogan is targeting were our nation’s allies during the fight against ISIS. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers decried the action, HillReporter.com detailed in previous reporting.
Trump has tried to defend his decision, arguing in social media posts that he “was elected on getting out of these ridiculous endless wars, where our great Military functions as a policing operation to the benefit of people who don’t even like the USA.”