Since the election, there have been talks of President-elect Donald Trump dramatically shifting US policy in Syria, moving away from supporting the rebels to focusing on fighting ISIS, with the expectation that he will align more closely to the Russian government in joint strikes on ISIS.
That appears to be happening already, with Donald Trump Jr. attending a Paris meeting with Randa Kassis, a Syrian opposition figure who has supported Russian intervention and has supported the idea of a peaceful political transition including the Assad government’s leadership.
Kassis was part of the early Syrian National Council rebel faction, but left in 2012. She participated in the Geneva peace talks earlier this year at the invitation of the Russian government, and is considered part of the “patriotic opposition” in the country, which is generally opposed to the Islamist factions.
That Kassis has been favorable to Russia and vice versa has meant by and large the Obama Administration and its allies want nothing to do with her group. That Trump is already having his family attending meetings portends a change away from supporting the war and toward supporting a political transition.
I’ve got my fingers crossed! 😀
The patriotic opposition is what is considered an “opposition” in democratic governments, where the opposition does not seek to bring down the state, but to scrutinise government policy and provide an alternative.
The rebels, who call themselves “opposition”, are not a democratic opposition, because having taken up arms, they only offer destruction of the state, not an alternative policy direction.
yes and I think Assad has agreed to work with them and stand for democratic elections like normal democracies do . But United States says Assad has to leave the country first
Don’t worry, the USA won’t say that under Trump.
Why does Trump have his children out doing this stuff?
Because Trump doesn’t want the kind of P C intelligence he might get from the NWO intelligence community . He wants simple answers coming from people he trusts .
Perhaps so he can trust the accuracy of the report of what was said and not said. Also sending his family members can add to the diplomatic gravitas of the meeting and the discussions.
Seriously would YOU trust the likes of Victoria Nuland when she was the one directly responsible for the Funding of the overthrow of the Ukraine elected government!
..because he’s too busy putting his Admin together, that’s why./
Trump has only received 2 intelligence briefings while V.P. Pence gets intelligence almost every day . I don’t believe Trump believes what intelligence says actually means much The intelligence is world order intelligence . The kind of intelligence one might use more for a global government . Our intelligence community has been gathering P C information for more than 30 years to give us P C answers for the world problems . This is worthless information for Trump . He plans to use his common sense to quickly solve these problems in a old fashion America can do way .
Thank god, that we can rely on the common sense of a twice divorced reality TV star who feels the need to emblazon every property he owns with his own name, who enjoys using common name-calling and bully tactics rather than maturity and logic. Talk about someone who really is in touch with the problems facing everyday people. Someone who understands nuance.
Russia’s everlasting weakness: safe trade routes to the outside world. To the Atlantic Ocean direct only from Murmansk and St. Petersburg. Both can easily be harassed by NATO. Indirect: through the Black Sea and Mediterranean (the port of Odessa was lost to Ukraine). Can be harassed at the Dardanelles. And Gibraltar. To the Pacific Ocean: only from Vladivostok. To the Indian Ocean indirectly only through Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. That is why the current “cold war” with Putin has nothing to do with Crimea and Ukraine let alone the Baltic states but everything with Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria. If President Trump understands this issue as Russia’s national interest he can terminate the current cold war with Russia. It does not have to become mutual love. Rational realism is more than enough.
Unfortunately Trump’s intent to harass and potentially threaten Iran via the nuclear pact is precisely what he should not do. That is utterly stupid in this context. Putin will not like it at all. The Crimea has shown that when you back Putin into a corner he will come out fighting.
Incidentally, when Molotov and von Ribbentrop negotiated their treaty the Germans promised that they would help Stalin gain access (“Southward” was the term used) to ports on the Indian Ocean if he wanted that help. Stalin indignantly rejected the offer because he thought that it was a ruse by Hitler to prevent the expansion of the Soviet Union’s influence Westward. That shows once more that nothing in history remains exactly the same.
There is nothing that can be done to get useful access for Russia to the outside world. It is a geographical basic fact of the Eurasian land mass.
Even if they did get access, there is no place for them to go to or get from that isn’t controlled by their enemies.
The Syrian position is not useful as a base, because they can’t get free access to it, and it does not itself have the infrastructure or “hinterland” needed to supply Russian forces independently of access to Russia.
Russian interests in Syria have nothing to do with base or access to the outside world. That is Western thinking projected onto them.
Russian interests are centered on things coming back at them. Syria is too close to their troubled regions, full of people who would infect their troubled regions with a lot more trouble. That is all the Russians see there. Proof? The long term neglect of the “bases” they already had, unused and not maintained for decades.
I keep hoping for a “peace candidate”
This is a useful reminder that the Syrian opposition is fragmented, and all over the place on every issue.
If there is any majority, it is crazies as hostile to the US as to Assad.
For the rest, they are small and their usefulness is limited to political cover for whatever the US chooses to do.