terrorism and ierdogan s missio to defeat terrorism. i m all for that but that does not appear to be what president trump is setting us up for here. the threat americans feared most for the past years has been isis. of course, what trump has done here is abandon our main ground partner against isis, the syrian kurds and for the syrian kurds to instead fend off the turks. doesn t seem like a policy geared towards defeating terrorism. why does the president have so much faith in erdogan s intentions here? it s hard to know. seems one explanation is that he, erdogan, is the sort of strong man whom trump seems to have a natural affinity for. it s in the putin category. if a president can do something of a favor for that world leader a favor erdogan wanted, trump is instinctively drawn towards doing that. the president explained the conflict to a rally of
i thought the saudis talked about putting together a coalition. talking about putting together a coalition and having anything remotely that looks like a multinational force or what about arab special forces to help the syrians. how about cutting through some of the mill claims the president made yesterday. if you sit there and listen. it sound like they had some military successes. the military has ramped up in the past month or two and making military progress. in ground we had some ground partners. actual ground partners in the kurd, a little bit with the iraqi government, the iranian backed militia. the big problem is still syria. we still do not have a ground partner in syria. if there s a big hole in the cheese it s syrian ground partner. do you sense with the president an increased urgency that he understands i m just asking. certainly i am not doing the president s bidding here. i ll just say i sensed an increased urgency that he understood the status quo was
we should be doing we can have a conversation about. there s a sense you got to step it up and we have to think about what it is it will take to get a ground partner in syria. it s not just on the military front. yesterday we had general here who asked why aren t we working the diplomatic channels more. that s his complaint. we just aren t reaching out to our allies and building coalition. i just don t know. a lot of emphasis is on the longer shot which is to get a deal about future political organization in syria. that s the long shot. we re not doing nearly enough to getting turkey to slow the flow of recruits. why not? because they ve agreed to give us access to the air base eventually. as a result we have gone easy on them. i think far more importantly it s to get them to slow.
a large city in the hands of isil. you can t fix iraq without dealing with syria. the story that s not being talked about they pick up the hometown in libya. we need a regional strategy and we don t have one. lindsey, you mentioned the key missing factor which is a ground partner in syria. what is your thinking about the best way to generate one and how many more u.s. troops are you thinking it will take to require and make it valuable on the ground there? i think we ll know more about what s left in syria soon. i believe this for two years,