i want to post some comments about syria, though.

it's clear at this point that if trump ever understood what he's doing then he already forgot. the premise that the turks are going to slaughter civilians by the thousands is not real, and the kurds are clearly not going to leave on their own. so, i don't know how you make sense of trump's analysis of his own behaviour. but, that's pretty normal - he's often incoherent, and he often contradicts himself in the same sentence.

a part of my position on this matter from the start is that the kurds need to pick better friends. they shouldn't have expected perpetual protection from the hegemon; that was not realistic, regardless of who is president, in the long run. this was not if, but when.

but, everybody else in the region - the russians, the turks, the syrians, the iranians, the saudis - have a much clearer understanding of what happens next. so, even if the truth is that trump got tricked into this, by who we don't know, he still made the right choice, by accident.

how is this supposed to work? well, we saw a preview of it a while back. the goal, here, is syrian territorial integrity, in the end, which requires pushing the kurds out - the war can't end until the kurds go home. they don't want to leave, though. so, how do you get them out?

1) the turks threaten to bomb them. if they just threaten them, and they're rational, that should be enough to get them to leave - they should know they can't win and give up. unfortunately, the kurds have demonstrated repeatedly that they're not rational actors, that they think they can beat the odds through manifest destiny or whatever other ridiculous thing, and you can't manipulate them through incentives or game theory like that. they don't seem to have that department in their military, unlike all the state actors involved.

2) so, if you can't treat the kurds rationally, if you have to bomb them to get them to move, what you do next is offer the syrians up as protectors. the western media is presenting this as some kind of catastrophe, but it's exactly what the plan should have been from the start. by integrating the kurds back into assad's forces, and maybe you even have them fight a few battles together, you reconstruct a concept of syrian nationality in the kurdish rebels. by fighting side by side, they once again become brothers.

3) the turks have to play along, here, in order to get this to work. yes, they have to blow up a few cities, kill a few civilians. c'est la guerre. it's not like a lot of people haven't already died, here, or the united states isn't already responsible for truly outrageous levels of carnage. but, they're not there to massacre civilians. err, i mean - tell that to the kurds, sure, let them believe that. the turks want to slaughter you like it's 1915, kurds. boo! it's not real, though - the turks know what will happen if they do that. and, what is the evidence? i think the death toll is a few dozen civilians, at this point. i'm sorry to call them collateral, but they won't leave. they won't act rationally. it is, in many ways, their own fault.

4) then, once the syrians have reestablished themselves as the dominant and rightful force in the region, the turks pull back - as they intended to from the start.

so, what is this about?

it's about scaring the kurds back into assad's arms.

and, i know that the saudis and their muppets in washington hate that, but it's the responsible way to get this done and over with.

if trump understood what he did, that's what he'd be saying, right now.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this