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Malcolm Nance Wouldn't Be Surprised If Trump Called Putin For Advice On Turkey

Joy Reid's guest sees big benefits for Russia in Trump's disastrous foreign policy moves.

By Aliza Worthington
10/12/19 12:13 pm

There has been plenty written and said about how reckless and cruel Trump's withdrawal of troops from Northern Syria is - what a deep betrayal it is to the Kurds, our only true allies in the region. It nearly guarantees a resurgence of ISIS, which, primarily because of Kurdish muscle and will, has been corralled and contained. Malcolm Nance joined Joy Reid's panel this morning to discuss all of that, and more. He began with the warning, "First off and foremost, forget anything that you hear from this administration. This administration lies about everything that they're saying right now, everything that they're saying is a lie."

NANCE: Within the structure of the middle east geopolitical framework, okay, ISIS was held and was obliterated by the Kurdish forces who came south with our special forces. THEY kicked in the doors. THEY were the ones who lost 11,000 dead men and women fighting and defeating ISIS. THEY surrounded the last stronghold and took all of them prisoner or are holding all of their families in these compounds. But there's one thing that didn't happen. we never caught ISIS' leader, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi. He is still out there and these people have a place in which to rally around, forces in which they will be able to attack and take weapons from, and also, it will give them the ability to appear that they are invincible, that ISIS cannot be defeated.

Joy Reid asked Nance to also explain the Russia connection. Russia is benefitting from this, and the reasons need to be spotlighted. She wanted to know what Russia is getting out of all this backwards maneuvering in Turkey and Syria. "Russia gets the Middle East!" Nance practically shouted - not AT Joy, but one can assume, in absolute dismay and incredulity at the degree to which Putin is pulling the strings.

NANCE: I don't know if you've noticed, but Russia now sells weapons systems to Iran, weapons systems to Turkey. They prop up the entire gassing terroristic government of Bashar Al Assad, right, who used chemical weapons on his own people. They're selling weapons systems to Saudi Arabia, which, by the way, someone explain to me why we're sending 3,000 U.S. soldiers to Saudi Arabia this week, and we're removing our special forces out of Kurdistan to allow them to be killed?

REID: Yeah.

NANCE: Russia is now calling all the shots in the Middle East, and I wouldn't be surprised if Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin to get advice on this before he made his deal with Turkey.

It wouldn't surprise most of us if he called Putin for advice on this, and any other foreign policy move that might benefit Trump's Big Daddy in Russia. That secret code-word-protected server may have a lot of stories to tell.
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