U.S. President Donald Trump has faced harsh rebukes from critics who say his Middle East policies are chaotic and driven by personal interest, but the president has elaborated a strategy in the region that includes Turkey and Russia, author Conrad Black said in an article published by the National Review. Eurasia Diary reports citing Ahval News.

Trump’s relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attracted criticism last year, as some analysts and politicians blasted what they called lenient policies in the face of defiant moves from Turkey.

The U.S. president shielded Turkey from the harshest consequences when it received delivery of S-400 missile defence systems from Russia in July, despite pressure from both sides of the U.S. Congress to impose sanctions.

Then, in a move that was widely reviled by politicians in Washington and around the West, Trump pulled U.S. forces away from the northern Syrian border with Turkey, essentially giving Turkey a green light to launch its Operation Peace Spring against Kurdish militias that had fought on the frontlines of the U.S.-backed campaign against Islamic State.

As commentators speculated on why the U.S. leader always appeared to side with Turkey’s interests, some raised questions over whether he was acting in line with his own business interests in the country, adding to the questions over whether he won the 2016 presidential election with secret help from Russia.

But Trump is actually viewing the unstable Middle East region as a whole and attempting to work with countries, including Turkey and Russia, that could add stability, said Black, a former newspaper magnate whose criminal fraud charges Trump pardoned in 2019.

The U.S. president wishes to form a common cause with Russia and Turkey in the region and to use them as a counterweight against Iran, Black said.

“Syria and Iraq should ultimately be regrouped in a loose confederation of largely autonomous zones, including Kurdistan. The inner stability and integrity from outsiders of this arrangement could be sponsored by Turkey, Russia, the U.S., Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and a respectable regime in Iran when one emerges,” he said. “It is generally in this direction that the administration is going, and it is a sensible path.”

Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring on Oct. 9 against Kurdish-led militias and administrations that had begun self-governing in the northeast of Syria during the country’s nine-year conflict. Some analysts say the Turkish government could not tolerate a Kurdish-led autonomous administration on the country’s border, since this could strengthen the Kurdish political struggle for self-rule within Turkey.

The country has also been embroiled in a series of bitter disputes with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and most recently in Libya, where Turkey backs the Islamist Government of National Accord against the renegade Libyan National Army, which is backed by Cairo and Riyadh.