Amanda Sloat is a Robert Bosch senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. She is also a fellow with the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. She served in the Barack Obama administration as the deputy assistant secretary of state for southern Europe and eastern Mediterranean affairs, as well as senior advisor to the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and Gulf region.
Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters gather behind a sandbagged barricade northwest of Manbij in northern Syria on Jan. 15. (Nazeer al-Khatib/ AFP/Getty Images)
A general view taken on July 12, 2018 shows an empty room on the second day of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Brussels. (GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)
U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo at Trump's Bedminster National Golf Club in New Jersey on Aug. 10, 2017. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)
ANKARA, TURKEY - APRIL 17: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan gives a referendum victory speech to his supporters at the Presidential Palace on April 17, 2017 in Ankara Turkey. Erdogan declared victory in Sunday's historic referendum that will grant sweeping powers to the presidency, hailing the result as a "historic decision. 51.4 per cent per cent of voters had sided with the "Yes" campaign, ushering in the most radical change to the country's political system in modern times.Turkey's main opposition calls on top election board to annul the referendum. OSCE observers said that a Turkish electoral board decision to allow as valid ballots that did not bear official stamps undermined important safeguards against fraud. (Photo by Elif Sogut/Getty Images)
Supporters of the "yes" wave Turkish National flags and flags depicting Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan as they cheer during his speech at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, on April 17, 2017 following the results in a nationwide referendum that will determine Turkey's future destiny.
Erdogan on April 17 said Turkey could hold a referendum on its long-stalled EU membership bid after Turks voted to approve expanding the president's powers in a plebiscite. Narrowly won by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the referendum asked voters to boost the powers of the Turkish head of state -- a move that rights watchdogs have said could fatally weaken democracy in the linchpin country. / AFP PHOTO / ADEM ALTAN (Photo credit should read ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images)
FAMAGUSTA, CYPRUS - MARCH 06: Former, decaying hotel buildings stand beyond a makeshift barrier and a Turkish military sign inside the "Forbidden Zone" of Varosha district on March 6, 2017 in Famagusta, Cyprus. Hundrds of buildings inside Varosha district, which was once a prime Cypriot resort, stand abandoned and decaying in a zone the Turkish military has sealed off ever since Varosha residents fled in the 1974 war. Cyprus has been divided into a Greek south and Turkish north ever since the brief but devastating war of 1974. Since then United Nations peacekeepers have maintained a buffer zone that runs through the capital city of Nicosia and across the entire island to keep the factions apart. In the south the Greek-dominated Republic of Cyprus is internationally-recognized and a member of the European Union, while in the north the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) is recognized only by Turkey, which also has tens of thousands of troops stationed there. Negotiations over possible reunification have made strident progress over the last few years, though they have stalled in recent months. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump holds an executive memorandum on defeating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria after signing it in the Oval Office of the White House on January 28, 2017, in Washington, DC.
US Vice President Mike Pence (L), National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (C) and Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway (R) joined Trump. / AFP / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
Boys pose with placards as they take part in a peace rally on November 18, 2016, in the northern part of Nicosia, in the self proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
Crunch UN-backed Cyprus reunification talks in Switzerland resume on November 20 with hopes that a breakthrough can be achieved this time around. Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and his Turkish-Cypriot counterpart Mustafa Akinci agreed to resume their discussions in the Swiss resort of Mont Pelerin for a crucial deal on territory.
/ AFP / Birol BEBEK (Photo credit should read BIROL BEBEK/AFP/Getty Images)
