il miglior fabbro

John "Doc Zero" Hayward doesn't get a lot of attention because he plies his trade at Breitbart, but he's a wonderful writer and observer. He writes about foreign policy issues these days and this summation of the most recent Dem debate is spot-on, especially on the matter of Syria:

None of the Democrats wanted to discuss Turkey’s claims of a severe security threat from northeastern Syria, discuss why the international community did nothing to address those claims, or explain why the United States was held solely responsible for preventing Turkey from taking action. They treated the notion of Russian and Syrian involvement against the Turkish assault as inherently outrageous without explaining why the Syrian government should not be held responsible for protecting its own citizens and securing its own borders. They complained about escaping ISIS prisoners without discussing why thousands of them were still parked in Kurdish prison camps and how long they should be left there.

None of the Democrats was asked to present a war plan for fighting Turkey or discuss how much the U.S. depends on Turkish bases for operations in the Middle East. None of them, not even Biden, was pressed on how the Obama administration set the table for current events. None of them acknowledged the difficulty of getting reliable information from any party involved in the savage Syrian civil war, although Gabbard came close when she pointed out how dodgy some of the groups supported by the Obama administration were.

And of course, CNN would not dream of asking the Democrat candidates — several of whom are sitting senators — why their caucus did not authorize military force against Turkey to protect the Kurds, instead spending all of its time on an impeachment crusade against President Trump. Trump said he wanted to pull troops out of Syria almost a year ago, and Erdogan was threatening to invade long before that. The Democrats had plenty of time to pass the appropriate congressional resolutions and send a strong message to Turkey, but that would have involved putting real political capital on the line instead of sniping from the sidelines.

I asked a question about troop levels in Syria yesterday because I don't know these answers. But I recognize demagoguery when I see it. As always, read the whole thing.