National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien *mostly* strikes the right balance here: it was standard procedure to give the Russians a heads up about US troops ahead of raid to kill #Baghdadi. We’ve been doing this since Russian intervention began in 2015. 1/3 
It’s also true, as O’Brien says that Russia even though “Russia presents a great danger to the US” we shouldn’t foreswear cooperation if it’s in our interest 2/3
But it’s a totally blatant falsehood for Trump and O’Brien to insist that Russia has been an ally in the fight against ISIS. Trump’s been repeating this nonsense since 2016. Russian forces were sent to Syria in 2015 to save the Assad regime. Nothing more, nothing less. 3/3
PS Here’s a paper I wrote w @nicole_y_ng about lessons learned from the US-Russian deconfliction mechanism in Syria. carnegieendowment.org/2019/03/20/col…
