Monday, October 14, 2019

Turning Syria over to Russia ..Trump's long standing desire

Update: 10/17/19
Trump's desire to leave Syria to the Russians date to his campaign and is a thread throughout his presidency.  The Kurds, our point of the speer against ISIS, our ally, he has now abandoned and they will be seeking protection from the Turkish invasion to which Trump gave a greenlight.  Here is a column that I posted in December 2016 referring to his position in September 2016 when he was a candidate.  The 10/17/19 "ceasefire" did not change the outcome; it only delayed it 5 days and left Russia in the driver's seat.
The heartbreak of the humanitarian disaster in Aleppo has created a great deal of finger pointing. Many wish Pres. Obama had not decided to have taken a hands off position. . However, the puzzle is what Donald Trump would have done differently and what he will decide to do when he takes office. He indicated in the campaign he would have done even less, leaving the country's civil war to Russia and Assad. Those two were the perpetrators and deserve universal condemnation. The irony may be that by the time he takes office, facts on the ground will have already made any decision by him moot. The winners, Russia and Assad, will have become the reality. Barack Obama, justly or unjustly, will have a blot on his legacy for being the enabler by his decision to ignore the crossing of the red line he himself painted several years ago.

To see this in a larger context going forward, what is going to be Don Trump's relationship with Russia? Will he also abandon the Ukraine, the Baltic states to Russian stealth takeover? Will he lead NATO into an eclipse by not evoking military and political protection of the Baltics who are members of NATO? Will he recognize Russian takeover of eastern Ukraine and the de facto annexation of the Crimea? Will he see Russia as a threat to the US, in spite of the US intelligence agencies verifying their interference in our elections, or Vladimir Putin as a friend and mentor to him personally?


To take clues of where he had been in the campaign as a way to predict the future, it is possible that he will support Russia's foreign policy, and would have supported it in Syria, too.


This is a partial reposting of a blog I authored September 8 and it was written even before Trump tapped the President of Exxon who had received a medal of friendship from Vladimir Putin to be our new Secretary of State.


"Donald Trump in the recent "Commander in Chief" forum called Vladimir Putin a better leader than President Obama.  That bromance between Trump and Putin is more than just a matter of flattery and egos.  It has real repercussions for future conduct of foreign policy if Trump is elected. Trump supports foreign policies that dovetail neatly with Russia's,, excusing the Russian grab of the Crimea, going along with the stealth invasion of Eastern Ukraine, calling NATO obsolete as a military defense alliance, and fuzzy about whether Russia's ally Assad in Syria must go. None of those policies are in America's or our allies' interests."



In fact, if Pres. Obama's leadership in the region is regarded by his critics as "weak", Donald Trump's leaving the field to Russia in areas of conflict in Europe, would be even weaker, and hardly is a way to make "America Great again" as a world leader. Instead, it helps make Russia great again.




http://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2016/09/trumps-foreign-policy-make-russia-great.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/vice-presidential-debate-putin-mike-pence-donald-trump-229147

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/28/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-quotes/

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-exclusive-idUSKCN12P2PZ

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