Moscow Mitch McConnell has been forced into making a second statement on Donald Trump's disastrous decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. He is "gravely concerned" he says. "Withdrawing American leadership from this pivotal region would not serve our nation’s short-, medium-, or long-term interests," the statement continues. "It would only make a troubling situation much worse, not only for regional partners such as Israel and Jordan but for the United States as well. These are the reasons why I co-sponsored legislation earlier this year that warned against leaving Syria or Afghanistan prematurely. A bipartisan supermajority of senators supported it."
What's missing from that statement? Three words: President Donald Trump. It's as if the withdrawal of troops just somehow materialized entirely out of thin air. What McConnell also doesn't say is whether he'll have a vote on the sanctions beyond the less-than-stringent sanctions being imposed by Trump. Instead, he makes a feeble attempt at covering his ass, thus betraying his weakness. "These are the reasons why I co-sponsored legislation earlier this year that warned against leaving Syria or Afghanistan prematurely. A bipartisan supermajority of senators supported it."
Clearly, Trump didn't give a damn about that legislation, or McConnell's concerns. From all appearances, McConnell is standing down, and will not hold a vote on tougher sanctions, because the wheel that had been squeaking the loudest for them—Sen. Lindsey Graham—has backed down. As late as Monday, Graham had been working with Speaker Nancy Pelosi across chamber and party lines to come up with a sanctions bill. But then he went to the White House and capitulated. Coming out of that meeting, Graham "praised the president for 'trying to end the bloodshed through a negotiations deal addressing Turkey's concerns about certain Kurdish elements near their border' and called on Democrats and Republicans to support Trump's executive order imposing sanctions on Turkish officials."
"The President's team has a plan and I intend to support them as strongly as possible, and to give them reasonable time and space to achieve our mutual goals," Graham said. How convenient for McConnell. He's not going to have to have that vote on sanctions now, even if the House does end up voting on and passing a tough package. It's the fig leaf all the Republicans have been looking for. They can pretend like the most disastrous foreign policy decision a president has made since Dick Cheney decided we had to attack Iraq has been rectified. And McConnell once again won't have to lead.
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