Kurdish, Syrian, and Turkish Ironies

Victor Davis Hanson

Critics now upset about abandoning our Kurdish friends demanded abject withdrawals — and the abandonment of friends — in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Turkish soldiers stand near military trucks in the village of Yabisa near the Turkish-Syrian border in Syria,

. . . "Like the Poles, the Armenians, the Greeks, and the Israelis, the Kurds are an honorable, ancient, and brave people who drew history’s unfortunate lot of living in a dangerous geography between much larger and aggressive nations. And, to be frank, all these endangered peoples at some point in their histories, ancient and modern or both, seem to have fought against Turkish forces, been targeted by them, or threatened by Ankara.
"So, yes, it is incumbent on the Trump administration in general and on Secretary Pompeo in particular to find ways to prevent mass Turkish attacks on the Kurds, while not inserting American ground troops into a cauldron of fire between Turks and Kurds. That effort will require a great deal of skill and deftness that are weirdly forgotten in the current bipartisan exclamations of “We sold out the Kurds!” — given the labyrinth of paradoxes that surround Turkey, Syria, Kurds, and the U.S. and the lack of information about the actual redeployment of American troops." . . .