Allies Warn Trump Against Cooperating With Russia Over Syria

Western Officials Insist Joint Anti-ISIS Ops Would Backfire

Most of the griping from Western countries about President-elect Donald Trump’s prospective foreign policy has centered on the idea of him not being sufficiently pro-NATO, and not picking enough fighters with Russia in Eastern Europe. Today that looks to be expanding into Syria.

Western allies are now warning Trump against following through with his plan to shift his focus in Syria away from trying to impose regime change and toward fighting ISIS, and are particularly warning that any cooperation with Russia in fighting ISIS will backfire.

French officials openly opposed the idea of shifting the war entirely toward fighting ISIS, insisting that Islamist groups would just reform unless the West imposed some sort of political solution on the country, one which presumably involves regime change.

Britain’s MI-6 chief echoed those beliefs, saying that Europe can’t be safe from the threats of Syria unless the civil war ends in such a way as would satisfy the Sunni majority and “not just a minority of its people and their international backers.”

This is in keeping with a lot of the Obama Administration officials’ position on the Syrian Civil War, but with the rebels losing more and more territory, it isn’t clear that continuing to try to install the ever-weakening, and increasingly Islamist-leaning rebels as the new “pro-West” government is even an option.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.