A SMALL WISDOM FROM THE “GAMECHANGER.”
Donald J. Trump took the world by surprise in 2016. He was a Yankee and a Nationalist when most of the world was going Globalist for the past two decades since the early 1990s. It was a double whammy for the US and the world to stomach.
On top of that, Trump came to power right after George Bush-43 and Barack Obama calamity in the Middle East. Bush was a disaster for the region. Obama was even worse. In the Middle East, the misery index was like a downward vortex. No one had answers.
Meanwhile in Turkey, Nationalist and Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in power for a long time. It took two full years for Erdogan and Trump to connect once and for all. That was in Argentina when they met at the G-20 meeting in 2018. It was the meeting of minds. They followed their meeting on December 14, a few weeks later, with a phone call. They understood that it was time to revisit the relationship between the two countries and open a new chapter.
It was time for the US and Turkey to act on equal footing in the region. Turkey needed US logistic support to extend its military reach in Syria as a start. The US needed Turkey to cooperate in Syria and Iraq towards a greater goal. Trump knew well that the US needed Turkey on its side to resolve the Iranian problem. But it was also clear that what was important for Turkey had to be resolved before that.
Northern Iraq and Syria had to be in Turkish control. So, it was, the world will say sooner than later, no later than November 2020 elections.
