I agree the pundits and politicians respond with this righteous vitriol while being taciturn up until a decision is made. It's a combination of maddening and sickening. Lipspeak garbage and/or populism. In this very specific case - it is disheartening the way it occurred.
Leaving is okay, but set up some recourse, a permanent no-fly zone, a UN peace keeping force...SOMETHING. To your point - that should have started day 1 with this president. Maybe it was thought out day 1 - if that's the case, it looks like he's allowing the Turks to make us make a choice, and he's choosing to back off...at the same time threatening to destroy their economy. The Turks are allies in name only. They've been on the opposite side of most geopolitical issues since end of cold war and are now just more open about it. I imagine Incirlik has an immense amount of value militarily to be allies of any type at this point.
To that end, while the Turks have openly disavowed the US and EU on most critical issues, the Kurds have been allies and in many cases when it wasn't their interest to do so, but only because we HAVE BEEN allies. They are not the only peoples without a country, but they are a peoples who has allied with us and us the consistently for 30+ years. It's sad to me this is the decision made.
Back away from North Korea and follow the will of South Korea. Leave if asked, do drills if asked, but follow their lead.
Back away from China trade and let ANY other country pick this fight. IP is being stolen from nearly all countries. We don't need to pick the fight, if you truly want an America First agenda.
Back away from Israel. Let Russia and India who Israel claims as allies come to their diplomatic or financial aid.
I can support any of those and many others, but this is one that strikes me as disgusting a decision as our government can make and I am embarrassed by it.
