Trump gives a bollocking to Erdogan

We have got used to Donald Trump’s politics and diplomacy by abuse. But abusing an ally, a crucial ally at that, seems to be a new departure for the president of the United States. He wrote a letter with his splendid flamboyant signature to President Erdogan of Turkey and warned him not to try to be a “tough guy” and to stop being a “fool”. While the letter was intended to make the Turkish leader think again about having his troops advancing all over northern Syria, the effect of the president-to-president message achieved exactly the opposite result. According to the BBC Erdogan took one glance at the letter and threw it in the bin. Just when Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, and Mike Pence, vice-president, were in Ankara to discuss the whole Syria issue, using presumably more diplomatic language. Erdogan is no fool even if Trump thinks he is. So spelling it out like that in a letter was bound to rouse the Turkish leader. His response was unequivocal. He had planned to sort out the Kurds in northern Syria for years and now that he was actually doing it he wasn’t going to change his mind or slow it down and certainly not stop it, especially after Trump had ridiculed him and cast doubt on his wisdom and masculinity by telling him to stop making like a tough guy. So the offensive/incursion/invasion will contine although Erdogan DID agree to suspend the fighting for five days while all Kurdish troops were withdrawn from the areas they have so bravely liberated of Isis militia. That sounds like an organised ethnic cleansing of Kurds, agreed between Ankara and Washington. As for the letter in the bin, I advise Erdogan to retrieve it and put it in his files for his memoirs. Trump’s most famous abuse of course, before he fell in love with him, was thrown at Kim Jong-un. He called him the little Rocket Man which I’m sure made the North Korean leader’s blood boil. It’s a source of amazement to me that the two men are still talking. Well, writing letters to each other Trump has never been slow in using colourful language when addressing his political opponents back home. In his latest session with Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, he told her she was a third-rate politician. No wonder she walked out in a huff. Abusive language I guess has its place in the political world although showing respect even to one’s opponents can surely do no harm. But this is not Trump’s way. He says what he feels and he says or tweets what comes into his head. It has to be remembered that, reportedly, Rex Tillerson, long gone secretary of state, once referred to Trump as a moron. But not to his face of course.