President Trump was very big on making Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan feel as welcome as possible at the White House. Turkish media outlets are taking notice, and presenting this as a sign of victory over Trump on the Syria issue.
Erdogan’s report that he gave Trump’s letter back to him on the visit and Trump remained silent was a big talking point in the Turkish press, suggesting Trump is aggressively backing down.
Erdogan also emphasized how “impressed” Trump was with a video he brought to show him. The video focused on the Kurds being terrorists, which US officials presented as a propaganda video.
Turkey’s big “win” here may have come out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where chairman Jim Risch (R-ID) announced he now opposes the idea of passing a sanctions bill against Turkey to accompany the House version. Analysts are saying it is very unlikely that this will mean the Senate getting through the matter.
Certainly when other countries behave anywhere near as aggressively as the US, daddy Congress howls with indignation and looks for ways to slap around the country that fell out of line. Ultimately such arrogance is just self-defeating.