I wondered the other night as I watched the BBC’s Orla Guerin file what must be her 10,000^thpiece from a place of deprivation and struggle, whether she ever feels a bit hopeless about it all.

It’s not history in the making, as much as history repeating itself.

She was of course in Syria, where so much of the world’s international media has been these past few years. But recently it was sort of over wasn’t it, in that way that so many international stories of struggle are over: someone declares  a victory of sorts, and we all turn our attention to something else .

There is no question Trump has let the Kurds down, but no amount of pictures of the thousands now fleeing and the earnest protestations from the Guerins of this world is going to change a thing.

Yes, the Americans can leverage sanctions on Turkey, and yes, they’ll have an effect, the same way they have leveraged sanctions on the Iranians to some effect as well.

But the Turks, like the Iranians, are still around, and in the Turks case the threat appears to be the three and a half millions refugees they’ll unleash if things don’t go their way.

But the three and a half million refugees aren’t going to end up in America, they’ll end up in the rest of Europe, so, for Trump’s purposes, none of this matters.

The other interesting thing to ask of those who don’t like any of this is what did the President campaign on? Getting troops home.  So you have a politician, like the action or not, that is delivering on what he said he would.

For purposes for electoral advantage, which move is better: saving Kurds in a foreign land at your cost and the cost of the lives of your fellow military citizens, or doing what you said you would, so you can go back to the voters and campaign on honesty?

Further complicating things for all those who look at Orla’s reports and feel outraged or upset and betrayed is the ongoing inconsistency in how the world deals with America. Criticized for decades over foreign policy, a country that couldn’t or wouldn’t keep to itself and its borders,  country desperate to meddle in others business almost always to the detriment of their own forces, not to mention the geo political stability of whatever place they’ve decided to invade.

We oppose them when they’re into it, we oppose them when they want no part - we can’t have it both ways.

As always, you can’t ignore the real politics: Trump is an isolationist. In a world where those like him are more common than many of us globalists would like, people who like to protect their borders  are on the political rise.

All that Trump is focused on is winning next year, does having Americans die in places many other Americans couldn’t find on a map help in that cause? No. Does delivery on what he said he would do help in that cause? In his mind, it’s not even a hard decision.