I am a historian of US foreign policy. I have read many, many letters from US Presidents to foreign leaders, and I have never read a letter from the US President so unhinged, so threatening, so bizarre, so completely lacking in basic etiquette. Trump is deeply, deeply unwell.
2/ For non-historians wondering what makes this letter so unusual, aside from the bonkers prose: Normally a letter from the US president to a foreign leader is drafted by the national security advisor or other high level policymakers, with input from other stakeholders.
3/ Even in response to rapidly unfolding events, a Pres letter is written and edited by committee, almost never by the Pres himself, and usually goes through multiple drafts to make sure every word is consistent with existing policy or spells out a considered policy option.
4/ A Presidential letter to another head of state is the sum of a policy process, and lots of people will sign off on it, since the US embassy and many others will have to respond to whatever policy issues are raised and any new initiatives that are rolled out.
5/ Trump’s letter seems to have been dictated straight by him to a secretary and sent to Erdogan without any input from top NSC, State Dept, or Pentagon/JCS advisors. It’s hard to overstate how crazy this is, given the stakes involved for US in Turkey’s invasion of Syria.
6/ This letter suggests a complete breakdown of the policymaking process and a President who is totally improvising with no input from advisors, since no competent, serious policymaker would ever sign off on such a letter. It just would not happen.
7/ Trump’s letter is in line with the decision to withdraw US forces from Northern Syria and green light Turkey’s invasion, also sprung upon his own senior policymakers with no warning, no policy process, no consideration of consequences.
8/ Presidents normally see themselves as constrained by their advisers, whose greater expertise and experience they at least have to consider. Trump doesn’t seem to see himself constrained by anyone and seems to feel free to say or do anything, and that should terrify us all. END
9/ And predictably, Turkish presidential sources report: "President Erdogan received the letter, thoroughly rejected it and put it in the bin." bbc.com/news/world-mid…
10/ And at the end of this disastrous performance, the US just accepted a ‘ceasefire’ in which Turkey remains in control of a 20 mile swath of Northern Syria, and Trump has endorsed Turkey’s ethnic cleansing of Syria’s Kurdish population.
Erdogan's response to Trump's letter confirms what we all knew. This was an unhinged, unprecedented, incompetent act of anti-diplomacy by Trump, and Kurds are reaping the consequences. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
