Doyle McManus: Trump has foreign policy principles: Syria shows how they work. Don't say you weren't warned
by Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times
Oct 16, 2019
3 minutes
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump never wanted to put U.S. troops in Syria. His strategy for defeating Islamic State - "I would bomb the shit out of them" - didn't include boots on the ground.
His generals insisted that they needed U.S. forces to direct the mostly Kurdish fighters who battled the radical militia on the ground, so the president relented - briefly. But when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to move into northeastern Syria, Trump ordered U.S. troops out of the way.
Trump's critics bewailed
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