Eli Lake, Columnist

The Trump Doctrine: American Unexceptionalism

In Syria, the president has chosen chaos and collapse.

October 16, 2019 at 10:45 PM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

New levels of incoherence.
Photographer: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP

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According to President Donald Trump, Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria “has nothing to do with us.” America’s longtime adversaries in the region — Syria, Iran and Russia — should be left to fight Islamic State. And it’s good that Syria is now protecting the Kurds he has just abandoned.

Trump’s two rambling appearances in the White House on Wednesday are notable not merely for their incoherence, which is by now familiar. They amount to a raw expression of his foreign policy: He is the leading proponent of what might be called American unexceptionalism.