There is absolutely nobody to support fully in this weird story from the Washington Post about the rough time acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had in Munich. Apparently, the United States doesn't carry the same weight of respect with our European allies as we once did and, worse, even members of our own Congress don't much care for the president* or his temp worker at the Pentagon.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), the leader of the main congressional delegation, pressed Shanahan on whether he was telling European officials in Munich that the full U.S. withdrawal from Syria was a done deal. “Are you telling our allies that we are going to go to zero by April 30?” he asked Shanahan, according to Graham. “Yes, that’s been our direction [from the president],” Shanahan replied. “That’s the dumbest f---ing idea I’ve ever heard,” Graham responded.



Graham then launched into a list of consequences he feared would result from a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Syria without a follow-up plan: The Islamic State would return, Turkey would attack Kurdish forces, Iran would gain the advantage. Graham asked Shanahan if he disagreed with that analysis. “That could very well happen,” Shanahan said.“Well, if the policy is going to be that we are leaving by April 30, I am now your adversary, not your friend,” Graham told the acting Pentagon chief, according to Graham. (Several other lawmakers confirmed this exchange.)

See what I mean? Even if Shanahan is the worst bungler into whom god ever breathed the breath of life—and I don't think he's even on the Hot 100 List in this administration*, but never mind—you can't get me to line up with Graham and his dreams of martial glory. If he wants to sell a completely open-ended U.S. presence in Syria to the American public while bridges are falling into rivers and Miami is lining up to be an archipelago in a couple decades, he can do it without my help.

Graham’s alternative idea, which he spent the weekend pitching in Europe, is for European countries to contribute hundreds of new troops to build a safe zone on the Syrian side of the Turkish border. This zone would keep the Islamic State from returning and provide a buffer between Turkish troops and the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces that the United States trained and armed (but now seems poised to abandon).The fact that Shanahan was telling European officials the United States was planning a full withdrawal undercut Graham’s parallel message that a deployment of European troops would motivate President Trump to leave a couple hundred U.S. forces there to help. Graham said later this is how Trump can avoid owning what could be a real disaster in Syria after most U.S. troops leave.

Not for nothing, but what in the hell is Lindsey Fcking Graham, elected by 179,000 votes last time around from the home office of American sedition, doing by pitching his own foreign policy to the countries of Europe? And why are we taking that idea seriously? Is everybody in the Republican Party using the cover of El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago to go into business for themselves?

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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