""So if Russia wants to get involved with Syria that's really up to them....
This comment by Trump today harkens back to the 2016 campaign, when he said: "Russia, if you're listening..."
Like good mobsters, they can speak in a code that each of them can understand. How would Putin interpret Trump's comments today?
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In his White House remarks, Trump said it didn’t harm U.S. strategic interests if Russia moved into the territory where the U.S. withdrew.
“Syria may have some help with Russia and that’s fine,” Trump said. “It’s a lot of sand. They’ve got a lot of sand over there, so there’s a lot of sand they can play with.”
Trump suggested that Russian involvement in the region would eventually prove costly, drawing parallels with the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s.
“It used to be called the Soviet Union, now it’s called Russia for a reason -- because they lost so much money in Afghanistan they had to downsize,” Trump said. “So if Russia wants to get involved with Syria that’s really up to them. They have a problem with Turkey, they have a problem with the border.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-16/trump-says-russian-syria-expansion-after-u-s-departs-is-fine
