Good morning, and welcome to the maiden voyage of the Morning Dispatch. If you haven’t had a chance to read yesterday’s explanation of who we are and what we hope to accomplish, you can check it out here. The team of Jonah Goldberg, Toby Stock, and Steve Hayes will be adding many more newsletters and podcasts in the coming weeks. Lots to cover today, so we’ll get right to it.

“This is Going to All Be Directly Laid at the President’s Doorstep”

Just two days after the Trump administration shocked the world by announcing that the United States would pull back from its position supporting the Kurdish military in northeastern Syria, the situation is deteriorating with astonishing speed.

Two events that unfolded after hours last night: First, the neighboring nation of Turkey, which hopes to capture a wide swath of Syrian territory to resettle refugees from the Syrian civil war, announced that it was on the verge of launching an attack on Kurdish forces in northern Syria. Turkish official Fahrettin Altun announced that the country’s military “will cross the Turkish-Syrian border shortly” in an op-ed for the Washington Post, in which he argued that the Turkish military should be seen as America’s true ally in the fight against ISIS.