Nytimes.com | By Ian Buruma

The sudden decision to pull about 1,000 American troops out of northern Syria, and leave Kurdish allies in the lurch after they did so much to fight off the Islamic State, has already had terrible consequences. The Kurds have been forced to make a deal with the murderous regime of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, hoping it will protect them against being massacred by incoming Turkish troops who regard them as mortal enemies. Russia and Iran, without whose support Mr. Assad’s government would not have survived, are quick to benefit from America’s sudden retreat. Violence in an already ghastly Syrian civil war could get a great deal worse.

foreignpolicy.com | By Bryan R. Gibson | Ocober 14, 2019

On June 30, 1972, two Kurdish men, Idris Barzani and Mahmoud Othman, arrived nondescriptly at the CIA’s sprawling headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and were led into the office of the agency’s legendary director, Richard Helms.

nytimes.com | By David E. Sanger | Oct. 15, 2019

News Analysis
All the warnings were there. But President Trump’s reliance on his instincts, and his relationships, led him to ignore the consequences of a move that has emboldened Russia, Iran and the Islamic State.

The NYT International Edition | By Jenna Krajeski | 16 Oct 2019

Their project in democracy has been three decades in the making.

Nytimes.com | BY PETER BAKER AND LARA JAKES Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper and Michael Crowley contributed reporting

He’s now trying to reverse consequences, as Kurdish allies are attacked by Turks

The Times | Octobre11 2019 | Richard Spencer Middle East Correspondent

In an outburst unusual even by his own standards, President Trump gave one reason why he could not regard the Kurds as long-term partners: their failure to help the US and its allies in the Normandy landings.

whitehouse.gov | October 6, 2019

Al-monitor.com - Cengiz Candar

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took the rostrum at the United Nations General Assembly and delivered a colorful address full of theatrics and accompanied with maps. In his speech, he contested the legitimacy of Israel’s frontiers and also disclosed Turkey’s project to create a safe zone in northeastern Syria that would seemingly resolve, in a radical way, the problem of Syrian refugees.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is preparing to send about 150 troops to northeastern Syria to conduct ground patrols with Turkish forces, reversing at least temporarily a withdrawal from Syria that President Trump ordered last December.