president trump announcing tonight that he is imposing sanctions on turkey and sending vice president mike pence to ankara to negotiate a deal between turkey and the kurds. but it was his decision last week to remove u.s. troops from northeast syria that opened the door for turkey to attack the kurdish allies and throw the region into chaos. joining me now is steve hall. steve is the former chief of cia russian operations. good to have you on. reaction to the breaking news. you see the move to send pence to the turkey a reaction to the backlash the president has been getting? >> it's hard to imagine how this could have been handled worse. right now the administration is seems to be sort of in a reaction mode. i mean, the damage that these moves in syria and with the turkish government are doing to u.s. credibility, for our ability to be a geopolitical power is just, i mean, it's going to -- it's going to impact