A cursory review of U. S. foreign policy will reveal one stupid disaster after another! Donald Trump and his wall at the Mexican border sounds stupid, is stupid. But [it is] probably not as disastrous as [President Lyndon] Johnson’s escalation of the war in Vietnam or [President Richard] Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia. It is probably not as stupid as the U. S. arming and training the Taliban, to fight the Russian-backed Government in Afghanistan. Certainly, it isn’t as disastrous as [President] George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. So let’s face it, our foreign policy–under Democratic and Republican Administrations–has been pretty [pathetic].
What caught my eye was a statement by Turkey’s Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim. On Wednesday, July 13, 2016, he said, “…normalization of relations with Syria is necessary.” My immediate reaction was, “What in the hell is going on?” Then I read on. He said, “We will expand the circle of friendship inside and outside the Country. We have already returned our relationship with Israel and Russia to normal. I am sure we will return to normal relations with Syria as well. We need that. Syria and Iraq need to reach stability, for success in the fight against terror.” My revised reaction was, “Hot damn! There’s a sane person with a realistic foreign policy. We should offer him a job at our State Department.”
Our Government did not like President Assad of Syria. Why? He sided with Russia on most matters and allowed the Russians to have a port in his Country–as if we don’t have a lot of ports in other foreign countries. Assad was re-elected President. Doesn’t that make Syria a Democracy? Gee, we get to choose between Hillary and Donald. Wow! Doesn’t that make us a Democracy? So supporting the rebellion against President Assad might not have been our smartest move. Was he all bad?
Good Lord! Ask if Obama is all bad, and you will get a chorus of Right Wingers insisting that he is the devil incarnate. Now Hillary will inherit that mantle. Because of Bush’s invasion of Iraq, some two million Iraqis fled their Country. Assad’s Syria took in 1.5 million of these refugees. That had to be a tremendous strain on Syria’s economy. How many did we take in? By comparison, a Trump Administration will take in zero Muslims and kick 11 million Mexicans out.
So, my conclusion is that Turkey has a sane foreign policy. Oh, but not so fast. Their President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, now has many thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey. He proposes giving them all citizenship.
That is very generous of him; how noble! Except for one little thing. Erdogan is very autocratic, and that would give him thousands more votes to keep himself in power. It would be like Obama granting all the illegal Mexicans amnesty, citizenship, and automatic voter registration. No wonder there was a short-lived coup in Turkey.