Immediately the decision was cut aside for democrats and several republicans including lindsey graham. Because the mood put in jeopardy kurdish buyers whod been allies with the United States and battling isis. Turkey claims the kurds are terrorist and shortly after the president s announcement they launched attacks against Northern Syria. They say the president s decision was established in the back after the longrunning support of the u. S. Graham calls it a shot in the arm to the bad guys. In a loyal ally ms. Cheney tweeted, we are joining u. S. Forces from Northern Syria is a catastrophic mistake that puts against against isis at risk and threatens your security. President trump backtracked a little following the perspective of any two wipeout turkey economically if it destroys the kurds and suggesting the u. S. Ceasefire. But the battle rages on. The real battle in syria in the rhetorical battle in washington. Its unclear what all this mean for the region and markers were unfair. With me too discuss is michael durand, a variety of jobs in the ministration of george w. Bush including senior director and the National Security council and defense. He joins me from irvine, california. Thank you very much for joining me. Thank you for having me. The consensus view in washington and the east coast in washington seems to be this is a catastrophic error by the president. Which is abandoning our allies, strengthening potentially reviving isis, strengthening ironic russia and all around a very bad move for u. S. Security. Do you agree . No, i strongly disagree with that position. Because i think what we have been doing unwittingly is we entered into a catholic wedding with a ypg, the Kurdish Group that has been fighting with us in syria without thinking, without dating and looking at them closely and realizing the Strategic Implication of what the marriage was. The most damning application was it was leading to the total alienation of turkey. Explain what you mean, explain who the ypg are, what they have been doing and why you think this is a bad move. So the ypg is the syrian extension, the syrian wing of the pkk, this is an extremist terrorist group in turkey that is seeking to partition turkey between a kurdish state to destroy the return under turkish republic. As represented by minority of turkish kurds and by the year 2040, about one third of the population of turkey will be of kurdish background. And this is a Minority Group inside turkey carrying out a violent terrorist campaign which the United States has always recognized as a terrorist campaign. The pkk is on the terrorism list of the state department. Now in syria, they have given rebranded as the ypg but the ypg is the pkk and we know that quite well. And we aligned with them they have been our allies and they have helped us, they have done all of the fighting on the ground, we supplied weapons in a few u. S. Soldiers and a few other countries are represented. But they have been doing the fighting against isis, theyve imprisoned thousands of isis fighters and whether or not we were right to get alongside them in the first place, they have been doing the workforce how they customer. They did not do it for th us, they did it for themselves. Theyre using and borrowing our power to build in a thomas kurdish state let on turkeys borders dominated exclusively by them. That is their political goal, and in our narrowminded counterterrorism view decided to turn a blind eye to all the political implications of their project which we have inadvertently been supporting. That was inevitably going to alienate turkey, not just president , but all of turkey. Want this move again, whether we were right or wrong and getting started, the implications of this move, we are already seeing it, under fire, tremendous personnel from the turkish men under military. They are almost going to have to abandon the prison camps on whether holding isis fighters, we will have the release of isis fighters into the region and potentially into europe and the rest of the world. That is not a good outcome shortly. I would put that problem to the europeans. Donald trump went to them and asked them to take the european nationals in the camps and they refused. If the europeans want those fighters kept in camps, then the european trip supplied the troops to keep them in camps. We cannot go we have inadvertently been sowing the seeds of a major war between turkey and the whit ypg in the , we cant do that because theres prisoners there holding. Also potentially forcing the ypg, our former allies, and use a designated terrorist, and forced him into the arms of the radiance in the regime as well in a way that will destabilize the region . On that, two points, they have always had good relations with irradiance and depressions. We adopted the proxy of the uranians and the russians when we joined up with them. They have never broken relations with the iranians and the russians as result of their relations with us. They are playing both sides. We should be clear about that. A front. Secondly, the answer to your question depends on how the turks play their hand. If the turks go in and the limited operation with the limited loss of life which looks like they will hold this pocket, if they do that, that is a nonkurdish region, an arab region and it seems they want to move in there and that would break up the kurdish region to the west and the kurdish region to the east and prevent the creation of a unified statement under the ypg control under the border. Thats what i think theyre up to. If they do that, and if we continue to stay in our positions around rocca where we are now, then there is a possibility of the United States and turkey coming to an accommodation that needs turkey security needs to maintain a relationship with the ypg and works to the disadvantage of the russians and iranians. Coming up next, we will take a short break, we will be back with more of the repercussion of the change for u. S. Policy in syria and white americans should be concerned aboutut it. Nawides teamed up with amazon to bring you the allnew echo auto. Youre gonna love this. Alexa, add xylophone to band shopping list. alexa okay. We dont need a band shopping list. Alexa and i disagree. Alexa, add positive attitude to band shopping list. alexa added positive attitude to band shopping list. Thats for you. You need it. Join nationwide now and get a free amazon echo auto. Michael durand, thank you again for being with us. Lets talk about turkey if we can. Turkey is a nato member to the traditional ally in the ally of the United States for some time. But it is not been behaving like an ally recently. It is doing deals with russia, doing what we seen here and being very aggressive in trying to spread in the president has ambitions and becoming increasingly in this country. What do we do about turkey, is this still a reliable nato ally . Or have we lost . I would take issue with the way you described it, its a much more complex story than the one you alluded to. I dont think we have behaved as a good ally to turkey. If ever there was a man who is lacking a Public Relations gene, it is him. He has a claim to making the United States that would put his position in a much more sympathetic like which he never makes a nobody wants to make it for him. When the Syrian Civil War exploded, one of the countries that was worst affected was turkey. 4 million Syrian Refugees in turkey. It opened up the whole possibility, as adjusted, the pkk establishing a strategic death in syria to carry out operations in turkey. These are Serious Problems for turkey. In the United States told the turks to sit down and shut up. When the iranians and russians made an intervention into syria and they wanted to do something about it, we sentient down and shut up. Then we went about carrying a number of policies that work to the profound disadvantage of our ally turkey. And they basically took it with a lot of patience. I have much more sympathy for them then what you suggest. What happens next, the turks are in there, they take out the ypg has a military capability to do it. And they hold on to the isis prisoners, we hope. How does the region play out from there. You think this could be a stabilizing action . That is where we want to try to get it. Were in an extremely powerless moment here. I dont think that the Strategic Options have been clearly presented to the American People. The danger that we face if aired one has made the decision to drive the americans out of syria, he can do that. I dont think he has made that decision and i think be very unwise to get. If you were to do it he would do it and he would team up with the russians and cut the deal with the russians in the government so he can solve his problem in a russian iranian framework. That would be the strategic disaster for the United States. We want to create a framework in which they can solve their Security Problems within an american framework and obviously are concerned about civilian casualties and the concerns about the kurds and to be true and honorable to the proxy that work with us, the ypg can be part of that. But we have to put the priority and have them order correctly. The number one is to maintain Good Relationship with turkey. Thank you very much. Michael durand thank you very much. Washington focuses on syria impeachment and more, they are yet to agree on gun violence. 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Plus 0 interest for 24 months and free premium delivery when you add a base. Ends monday. With me now is that, the chairman and chief executive officer of Dicks Sporting Goods and the author of a new book, how we play the game, build a business, take a stand and make a difference. Thank you for joining us. I think the title of the book captures you well. Especially the subtitle of vacated difference. The approach that we have taken to running the exported goods over the last 35 years especially in the last few years, tell us what it means and what has been the driving influence and objective of your career. Our business has been focused on kids. It goes back to the early days of our business when my father changed the face of Little League and we boys been focused on kids. And about the business and 1984. We think sports are so important to kids life because it teaches so many life lessons. It is been something that we have the forefront of our business from the beginning. You have become an issue of taking a stand and making a difference which is been the hallmark of your career, its been prominent the last couple of years over the issue of guns. Very controversial issue in this country. I want to talk to you in some detail about decisions that you made particularly after the parkland shooting in florida in february valentines day 2018. There is a section where you describe what happens and i want to read you a quote. The quote says a thought came to me that was not entirely welcome, as if you are reflected the next day or the same date on the parkland shooting. Maybe we were part of the problem, maybe the fact that we did everything buy the book did not matter. Maybe an excuse or justification. We went through corporate return one of the incidents happen, a mass shooting and of course you are selling guns, worried sick with the memes to cause harm, why keep doing this. You then made a very important decision, explain that to us what happened in the course of the next two days and why you made the decision. We looked at this and a defining moment was when we found out that we sold the shooter a shotgun a couple months before the rampage he went on and parkland. When that happened, to me the system was broken. This coul kid should never haven allowed to buy a gun, he should never have been allowed to by the msr that he used in the shooting. The gun that he bought from you was not the gun he is. It was not. But the fact that he should not have been able to buy a gun. It shows the system was broken, we have expertise in the firearms business, ive been around guns my entire life, we sold them from the very beginning but at that point i said we need to stand up and say something, we need to drive more common sense gun reform. So thats what we did. And then you hold to the sale and you previously from the main Dicks Sporting Goods already halted the sales from some semi aromatic, but you still had selling these but you halted the sell of those. After sandy hook we indicated we suspended the sale of all the assault rifles and all the stores and never put them back. After a number of other shootings whether in orlando, san bernardino, migh wherever it might possibly be. We said we have those guns in stream chain which we opened up after parkland. We said at that point we are done and we will not sell them. We went further and said we would not sell any assault style rifles in our stores and never put them back in. We said no highcapacity magazines, we would not sell a firearm to anyone under 21 years of age and we call that to come together with the intent to try to solve this problem. What is the impact on your business . Its a small contribution to your line but there is a market out there for hunters in particular. Can you tell us what the impact has been . We knew it would have an impact on our business. The shooting happened on february 24 i mean fiber 14th, we made our announcement of the breach 28, we were thoughtful on how we would go about doing this. We thought it would have an impact of a quarter Million Dollars on sales. Eight plus billion dollars. Small but not insignificant. A quarter of a billion is not insignificant. When we got done with that year it was pretty much what we thought, a quarter of a billion. The broader impact is arguably apolitical in society one. Have you had a impact of changing the debate . I think i like to think we move this conversation forward. Today, 90 of the American People support expanded background checks, i dont know why we can now get the house is passed under past hrh, which i encourage them to do that, they signed the background check bill and now mcconnells desk, i hope he will bring it to the floor and have a vote in the debate. Completely fairminded lawabiding people in this country who have been used to buying their guns at dix or feel in stream, who i imagine feel pretty outraged with the fact that they cannot buy the goods or any more but you took a stand that is so hostile to them. Are you concerned about the impact on the lawabiding gun owners of america . We know some people would be upset, there has been people who are gun owners were very upset with us and that impacted your business, but theres been an awful lot of people who are gun owners who say i agree with what youve done, we continue to support you and will do business with you. Its pretty fractured on how people feel. Just ahead, the social worries of the mba suddenly go silent. We will explain next. Well inform them that Liberty Mutual customizes home insurance, so theyll only pay for what they need. Your turn to keep watch, limu. Wake me up if you see anything. [ snoring ] [ loud squawking and siren blaring ] only pay for what you need. 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Dont stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. Eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. Dont take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. While taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. Seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. Eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. Tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. Eliquis, the number one cardiologistprescribed blood thinner. Ask your doctor if eliquis is whats next for you. Performance comes in lots of flavors. dramatic orchestra theres the ampedup, overtuned, feedingfrenzyof sheetmetalkind. And then theres performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. Thats the kind lincolns about. Gerry an ancient chinese tradition and active obeisance to the emperor that required his subject about so low that their head touched the floor in his imperial presence. The National Basketball association showed its custom is alive and well. Sadly its americans and not chinese subjects who are doing the bowing. The general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted his support for the Democracy Movement in hong kong they all but apologize to the communist leadership for daring to question their actions. This by the way from elite whose players and coaches such as the warrior steve kerr slammed political leaders when they dont follow the liberal left line. A listen in as im afraid its americans sports hollywood academia and elsewhere trashed on heritage denounced deviation for the monolithic liberal globalist worldview and elevate every alternative cultural system. However in liberal all while pursuing profit wherever they can get it and they wonder why the American People are in a rebellious mood. Thats it for us this week. For updates follow me at Twitter Facebook and instagram. Ill be back here next week where we will discuss the 2020th president ial race with former Governor John Kasich right here on the wall street journal at large. Thank you for joining us. Barrons roundtable scott galloway. Earning season what to expect. For companies to watch in why and liberate general weighs in on china trade the 2020 election and more. Barrons roundtable starts now. Welcome to barrons roundtable where the sharpest minds on wall street meat to get behind the headline and prepare you for the week ahead. Im set. We begin with what we think are the three most important things investor should be thinking ab