A very tough day, bookmarked in the morning by #AmbMashaYovanovitch's searing testimony before House Committees detailing the intrusion of corrupt American and foreign actors into matters of US national security, and 1/
in the afternoon, a teleconference with #SDF commander Gen Mazloum, fresh from the front, detailing the terrible real-time consequences in every direction triggered by the President's peremptory decision to pull back US forces in NE Syria, 2/
Offering a green - at least blinking yellow - light to a Turkish incursion. 100 K refugees fleeing in terror (where will they go?), a partner critical to past-and-future success against ISIS betrayed, a huge gift to Russia, Iran, Damascus. 3/
But let's return to #yovanovitch. A peerless professional, with deep expertise but more importantly, a profound commitment to pursuing and upholding US national security interests wherever she served. And then she came a cropper. 4/
Read her statement. Read it all. int.nyt.com/data/documenth… . 5/
She is the epitome of an apolitical foreign policy professional, who served her country in tough, unforgiving environments. And her stoic disbelief at finding that she has been turned out of office because "someone was listening" to corrupt interests" 6/
"selling baseless conspiracy theories" is hard to read. And just as hard to digest today was the equally-stoic assessment by teleconference of #SDF commander Mazloum of the disaster befalling US interests, US partners in NE Syria, where 7/
the pullback of US forces exposed terrified civilians to indiscriminate Turkish shelling/airstrikes, pulling SDF fighters away from guarding 12000 ISIS fighters. Where will it end? What was it all for, this unprecedented by-with-through defeat of ISIS? 8/
At the end of this sorry week, that's the rending sound you hear of US national security, in the guise of apolitical, professional diplomacy, critical alliances and US credibility. 10/10
