Trump Administration’s Reversal Of Obama Era Policy In Syria
The editor-in-chief of Lebanon’s prestigious al-Akhbar newspaper, Ibrahim al-Amin, has revealed in his recent editorial [1] that Tulsi Gabbard, the United States Representative for Hawaii whose trip to Syria in January and meeting with Bashar al-Assad was widely reported in media, had conveyed President Trump’s offer of cooperation to Assad during the meeting.
The English translation of a relevant excerpt from the Arabic editorial reads as follows:
Tulsi Gabbard asked Assad: “If President Trump contacted you, would you answer the call?” Assad replied: “Is this a hypothetical question, or a proposal?” Gabbard: “It’s not hypothetical. This is a question to you coming from President Trump which he asked me to convey to you. So let me repeat the question: If President Trump contacted you, would you answer the call?” Assad replied: “Of course. And I’ll give you a number where I can be reached quickly.”
Apart from Tulsi Gabbard, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, and the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, have also stated on the record recently that defeating the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is the first priority of the Trump Administration and that the fate of Bashar al-Assad is of least concern to the new administration.
Moreover, on the campaign trail, in his speeches as well as on TV debates with other presidential contenders, Donald Trump repeatedly mentioned that he has a ‘secret plan’ for defeating the Islamic State without elaborating what the plan is? To the careful observers of the US-led war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, however, the outlines of Trump’s ‘secret plan’ to defeat the Islamic State, particularly in Syria, are now getting obvious.
As far as the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq is concerned, the Trump Administration is continuing with the policy of its predecessor. The Trump Administration’s policy in Syria, however, is markedly different from the regime change policy of the Obama Administration.
Unlike Iraq where the US is providing air and logistical support to Iraq’s armed forces and allied militia in their battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State militants, the conflict in Syria is much more complex that involves the Syrian government, the Sunni Arab militant groups, the Kurds, Turkey and Russia.
Regarding the recapture of Palmyra from the Islamic State by the Syrian regime, a March 2 article in the Washington Post carried a rather paradoxical headline: “Hezbollah, Russia and the US help Syria retake Palmyra” [2]. The article by Liz Sly offers clues as to how the Syrian conflict might transform under the new Trump Administration.
Under the previous Obama Administration, the unstated but known policy in Syria was regime change, and any collaboration with the Syrian regime against the Islamic State was simply not on the cards. The Trump Administration, however, looks at the crisis in Syria from an entirely different perspective, a fact which is obvious from Donald Trump’s statements on Syria and more recently, from Ibrahim al-Amin’s testimony regarding Tulsi Gabbard’s message of cooperation from President Trump to Bashar al-Assad. Moreover, unlike the Obama Administration which was hostile to Russia’s interference in Syria, the Trump Administration is on friendly terms with Assad’s main backer in Syria, i.e. Russia.
It is stated in the aforementioned article by Liz Sly that the US carried out 45 air strikes in the vicinity of Palmyra against the Islamic State’s targets in the month of February alone, which must have indirectly helped the Syrian government troops and the allied Hezbollah militia to recapture Palmyra along with Russia’s air support.
Source: http://www.blacklistednews.com/Trump_Administration%E2%80%99s_Reversal_of_Obama_Era_Policy_in_Syria/57706/0/38/38/Y/M.html
