Page 1143 - Leverage News Today

Before then you should understand ukraine was more or less the same post-soviet reality. >> ukraine is extremely vulnerable. if your countrys occupied, annexed, fighting a war in eastern ukraine, up to 13,000 people have died. they need u.s. support. >> ukraines dependance on u.s. military support after the revolution gave vice president biden a lot of leverage for his anti-corruption agenda. high on the list of possible wrongdoers was ukraines private energy company burisma, a company few ameri...

Situation to emerge in the first place. this is an example of how total lack of leadership from the white house has caused not only our strategic adversaries like russia or, in many ways, china to be able to do things they wouldnt have if we were showing more leadership, but also our allies. you look at the behavior of saudi arabia. you look at the bhaehavior of turkey, which is supposed to be a native ally, and clearly when the president green lights bad behavior, thats what you get. we had lev...

>> if i were commander-in-chief we never would have allowed this situation to emerge in the first place and this is an example of how the total lack of leadership from the white house has caused our strategic adversaries like russia or in many ways china to be able to do things they wouldnt have if we were showing more leadership but our allies. look at behavior of saudi arabia and the behavior of turkey and which is supposed to be a nato ally when the president green lights bad behavior, that i...

To come south, and he was going to do it, cross into syria and take territory one way or the other. in terms of leverage, what can the trump administration do now? its very hard to see. its important to remember turkey is a member of nato. the u.s. is not going to go to war against a nato ally. the president is talking about economic sanctions as leverage. but from north korea to iran, we have seen so many authoritarian regimes survive sanctions year after year. there is universal condemnation i...

To get out of the way. thats the view of the pentagon. fredricka? >> so barbara, what about what has been considered a long-time turkish-u.s. operation? the u.s. used air strips, air space, air installations in turkey, so what kind of leverage, if any, does the u.s. have in trying to persuade turkey to stop doing what its doing, even though it was this administrations pullout of u.s. troops that has opened the way for this to happen? >> in the view of many, it has opened the way. some people ver...

Were working against him inside of syria, he withdrew his troops from the kurdish region up in the northeast so that they could fight insurgencies, that left the kurds free to become more powerful which spooked the turks big time because the last thing that the turks want to see is a continuous kurdish region that stretches from all the way on eastern border with iran through iraq and then all the way across that 300-mile border with syria, they do not want to see that happen. arthel: so back to...

But also even in a weird way for the president himself, because he got caught up in his own echo chamber on this thing. the next thing you know, hes on the phone with the president of ukraine trying to use leverage to get him to go along with a story that the president of ukraine knows isnt true. >> right. >> and its a disaster. >> right. >> and he may get himself impeached over this. >> you have written a lot and researched a lot on dark money and the way that dark money moves. i was thinking a...

They dont exist side by side unconnected. and we should have used the leverage we had by being on the ground there with these really good fighters to get something at the negotiating table, which would be more of a say in what happens to the kurds, more of a say in what happens to the isis fighters. but we manage to convert it into nothing. now we have no leverage, and frankly speaking, the civil war is not going to end just because assad and the russians roll in. because isis fighters are going...

Talking about sanctioning turkey when we could have just said dont do it. we have a lot of leverage over turkey. but it looks like that there will be some sanctions whether that stops the turks is another matter. but i was talking to a western intelligence official tonight who said, you know, all bets are off now. we dont even have air supremacy necessarily in all parts of that region anymore. so its like, you know, all these people who are escaping from the camps its not like they can be bombed...

To a worse outcome. and look, thats -- these are not easy decisions. but what do you say to that line? >> but you know, what president trump said was not im committed to making a kurdish homeland in syria. what he said is were going to wipe out isis, which was the benefit also of the kurdish people who live in that region. bl, thats to be debated. but i would say, isis has been militarily defeated and whether they come back or not is conjecture at this point. but what i would say is this, we hav...