President Donald Trump receives a briefing, Thursday, April 6, 2017, on a military strike on Syria, from his National Security team, including a video teleconference with U.S. Secretary of Defense, Gen. James Mattis, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, in a secured location at Mar-a-Largo in Palm Beach, Florida. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead) Editor’s Note: Items in this image have been altered for security purposes.
In what appears to be a major surprise to politicians across the world, in Syria, President Donald Trump is doing what he promised he would. Pat Buchanan explains that any others reasons for American forces in Syria, such as blocking Iranian weapons transports to Hezbollah for the Israelis, were not what the President was focused. Trump promised voters he would defeat ISIS, and he has. Pat writes (abridged):
“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there,” wrote President Donald Trump, as he ordered the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Syria, stunning the U.S. foreign policy establishment.
Trump overruled his secretaries of state and defense, and jolted this city and capitals across NATO Europe and the Middle East.
Yet, Trump is doing exactly what he promised to do in his campaign. And what his decision seems to say is this:
We are extricating America from the forever war of the Middle East so foolishly begun by previous presidents. We are coming home. The rulers and peoples of this region are going to have to find their own way and fight their own wars. We are not so powerful that we can fight their wars while we also confront Iran and North Korea and face new Cold Wars with Russia and China.
As for the terrorists of ISIS, says Trump, they are defeated.
If the Israelis were relying on U.S. forces in Syria to intercept any Iranian weapons shipments headed to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Damascus, then the Israelis are going to have to make other arrangements.
The war party project, to bring about regime change in Tehran through either severe sanctions leading to insurrection or a U.S.-Iranian clash in the Gulf, will suffer a severe setback with the U.S. pullout from Syria.
However, given the strength of the opposition to a U.S. withdrawal — Israel, Saudi Arabia, the GOP foreign policy establishment in Congress and the think tanks, liberal interventionists in the Beltway press, Trump’s own national security team of advisers — the battle to overturn Trump’s decision has probably only just begun.
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