this is real. this is money. melissa: they have aligned behind the president in terms of foreign policy, particularly in the middle east and we are seeing a break off here. so you watch this, according to our reporting, turkey is honoring the cease-fire. they are trying to get the wounded out of some of these cities. and they can t even get to those people with casualties, and the kurds are supposedly thrilled about this. but where do kurds retreat to? while they have nowhere to go and the president signed off on an ethnic cleansing of the kur kurds. i realized last night, and the
kur kurds and here s an injury in which lindsey graham and bernie sanders are in complete agreement we shouldn t be doing that and third, and finally, i will simply observe, iranian activity here, the iranian influence, here you have two, if you will, ancient empires colliding, thinking ottoman, turk, coming into the remnants of the arab caliphate. but what is fluttering around the edges of all of that are persians, iranians, so it is an extremely dangerous mix. and if turkish forces actually attack, accidentally, or got forbid deliberately american troops, that puts the nato alliance in real question, with two nato members with forces in conflict. it s a very dangerous situation. sir, as you know, leading troops before, what might this do to the morale of those on the ground, in syria, u.s. forces, and their colleagues, their
how go how did we get here? it is a big, big issue.way that we got here essentially is that in 2014, 2015, the u.s. needed ground forces to fight against isis and the kurds up there in northern syria were by far the best option and continue to be the best option for the united states. the problem is that turkey doesn t like them and the problem is that they also have a beef with the assad government as well, which of course is back bed by russia. now the u.s. wants to leave which essentially would leave the kurds unprotected. hence the president saying in his tweet, look, we don t want the turks to attack the kurds when we leave that area, a lot of beef between the turks and kur kurds, so he said turkey would be devastated economically, but seemingly left the back door for the erdogan government if the turks provoke the kurds. but russia is already in
the u.s., but rivals of each other. what prompted this? it is a very difficult one. this is really one of the tweets or plots, if you will, that is most interesting to me having watched this. i ve been in syria about 25 times now and the plight of the kurds has been central to the u.s. there. obviously the kurds have been the most important fighters the u.s. has had against isis and it seems that the president may be trying to have it both ways, trying to get out of syria but also protecting the kurds from turkey as well. so interesting to hear him say on the one hand that turkey would be devastated economically. on the other hand that the kurds also can t provoke the turks either. that could be the back door for the turks to take some sort of action. but if and when the pullout, it has begun, when it ends, the big power set to become more important than anyone else is probably the russians.
asked. i think it is the most insulting article i ve ever had written. and if you read the article, you see that they found absolutely nothing. the word no was missing there. also this weekend, the wall street journal reporting that president trump s national security council asked the pentagon for military options to strike iran. the request came last year after militants aligned with tehran fired three mortars into the diplomatic quarter, home to the u.s. embassy. and last night, the president tweeting sharp words for turkey threatening to devastate its economy if it attacks kurds in sear skra. but t syria. but also he seemed to give some cover to turkey if it does attack the kurds. a lot to get to with fred pleitgen live in moscow. fred, good morning. reporter: good morning. certainly those two bombshell articles that came out over the weekend in the new york times and the washington post very