Syria - President Trump One-Ups Security Experts Again

To further mark the previous posting's occasion, I would like to state a verity before talking about Syria's conflict. It appears that almost anything the Democrats and Never-Trumpers, Neoliberals, and Neocons stand for, claim, or assert, is a proper gauge for falsehood and outright nonsense. Thus, judgment seems to come easy these days: Espouse the opposite of what these maniacs – such as Pelosi, Schiff, Sanders, Graham, Romney, Bolton, as well as most of the so-called pundits on the MSM networks – state, one cannot be far off the truth. The adequacy and real legitimacy of the respective viewpoint then become just a matter of taste and personal emphasis within the overall judgment range.

That logic serves well to find out the truth regarding the withdrawal of American troops from the northeastern part of Syria and the alleged 'leaving the Kurds in the lurch' is concerned. Consider the opposite of the artificial outrage of the swamp creatures inside and outside the beltway, and the actual reality reveals itself. 

The argument that the US has betrayed the Kurds, who fought alongside the US to defeat ISIS, is preposterous and practically nonsensical. With the ISIS caliphate gone, Turkey was determined to establish a safe zone against Kurdish forces in Syria, which it considers an anti-Turkish terror group. US intelligence had observed week-long preparations for a potential operation. It inferred severe intent on Turkey's part, which even in last-minute phone conversations between Presidents Trump and Erdogan could not be discouraged. Quite obviously, the US administration neither greenlighted the operation nor could it dissuade Turkey from carrying it out. Even when reinforced by the relocation of other US troops, the few dozen US special forces in northeastern Syria could neither have prevented nor warded off a Turkish incursion.

It was thus clearly the correct decision to get the US troops out of the way. This move not only helped to avoid combat between friendly NATO forces. It also set the stage for the Kurds to turn to the Syrian Army, which is now moving to the border, taking over the Kurdish population's protection, and is taking back control over its entire territory. 

That military brass as well as all the armchair generals in the US Congress (led by the warmonger GOP Senator Lindsay Graham), who blame the US to have deserted its Kurdish allies, have not yet come to terms with the fact (and probably never will) that the entire Syrian catastrophe began with the ill-advised regime-change operation the US launched against Assad some seven years ago.

In the blog post of May 10, 2013 (https://www.edwinseditorial.blogspot.com.edwinseditorial.com/2013/05/disastrous-foreign-policy-failures.html), I denounced the colossal error of politically and militarily supporting dubious insurgent radicals to promote regime change in Syria, after similar policies in Egypt and Libya had already wrought terrible results.

Since then, we have observed the unspeakable mayhem the US has caused in the misguided and failed regime-change effort to oust President Assad. For this effort, it employed the help of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Assad conglomerate of Kurds and Sunni Arabs, and the Kurdish PYD, a follower of the communist PKK, which Ankara considers to be a terrorist organization. 

When Russia entered in 2015 to prop the Assad regime and restore the integrity of Syrian territory, it became evident that the US's intervention - illegal according to International Law and unethical in principle (as I explained in the respective postings) - was supposed to fail. Alas, in its Russophobe and foolish regime-change attitude, Washington rejected Moscow's offer to fight the Islamic State jointly. Instead, it provided money and weapons as well as air support and special forces-backing to Kurdish-dominated organizations. 

The failure of Washington's foreign affairs policies and the prediction that it will end in a massive embarrassment for the United States in Syria I explained in my post of September 27, 2017 (https://www.edwinseditorial.blogspot.com.edwinseditorial.com/2017/09/why-my-north-korea-resolve-could-have.html)

  

President Trump's decision not to engage in a war with Turkey will certainly prevent another interventionist folly from taking place – foolishness would have further exacerbated the already complex and highly intricate situation in northern Syria. 

Heavily brokered by Russia, the decision also allowed the Kurdish SDF to do what was long overdue - turn to Damascus and the Syrian Army for protection. It looks like Syria seizes upon the opportunity of the cease-fire US envoys Pence and Pompeo have negotiated with Erdogan to regain control over this part of its territory. Once sovereignty is restored and national security over the entire region provided by its regular armed forces, any reason for Turkish incursion into Syria will be void.

Let us not kid ourselves: The US' former "Kurdish allies" were, in reality, nothing but a bunch of bought – with tremendous amounts of money and armament - mercenaries, who did the US' bidding in the area. Their questionable commitment to fighting the Islamic State was more or less a pretense of carving out a portion of Syria and possibly Turkey and achieving one of their long-term goals of creating some autonomous region for themselves.

All in all, the outcry in US leftist and neocon quarters, as well as the warmongering, is not only unwarranted but outright stupid. Laudable exceptions turned out to be GOP Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard. Both criticized the interventionist US policies and supported President Trump's paradigmatic change in foreign relations. The loony Hillary Clinton, who perpetrated the terrible policy mistakes during former President Obama's tenure, disparages Gabbard as a Russian agent for her stance.   

What is also quite appalling is the lack of loyalty among the Republican Party, 129 of whose representatives signed on when the House put forward a vote to condemn the President's troop withdrawal in Syria. The military-industrial lobby's grip on Washington, in combination with the meanwhile prominent Trump-Derangement-Syndrome, seems to suffocate any reasonable decency as to the business of war on both sides of the aisle. 

The disregard for the Presidential prerogative to determine the course of foreign affairs and national security and the viciousness with which the belligerent Washington establishment answers any course correction to the failed policies of the past couple of decades is quite alarming. 

It points to the degree of corruption of minds and hearts in the capital and deficits in professionalism, and a lack of comprehension of civic and human affairs.

No doubt, as far as its political culture is concerned, this Republic is in serious trouble.

Why My North Korea Resolve Could Have Made President Trump 'Famous' at the UN!

Had the advisors to President Trump read my blog essay on "How to Resolve the North Korea Crisis" of August 10, 2017 (https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2017/08/how-to-resolve-north-korea-crisis.html), could they have made him 'famous' at the United Nations? If Mr. Trump had presented my two-tier approach to resolving this crisis, which is not only politically sound but also morally legitimate, they would hail him as a statesman by now. Does this sound conceited or arrogant? It might seem at the beginning of this brief essay, but hopefully will no longer at the end.

 

Imagine Mr. Trump, heeding the advice I proposed in my blog essay, saying something like the following in his speech at the United Nations Assembly: "I assure the world public that the U.S. will never use nuclear force against North Korea first. I guarantee the North Korean regime that the U.S. and its allies will not forcefully implement regime change in North Korea. My political administration will pursue the establishment of a peace treaty to that effect. While this process is ongoing and until we achieve a satisfying result, the U.S. will observe the principle of 'deterrence by denial.' It will implement missile defense capabilities and civil defense measures to protect itself and its allies if North Korea decides to abandon this proposal for resolving the crisis between our nations peacefully. However, I assure the world community of nations that if North Korea should strike or attempt to hit the U.S. or its allies with weapons of mass destruction first, the United States will strike back with all its might at whatever cost this might entail for the North Korean people."

 

This statement would have not only been prudent to say in the sense of putting the U.S. on the moral high ground in this conflict. It would also acknowledge that the experts in Washington D. C. had finally understood what North Korea's aggressive posture and its constant missile and nuclear testing is all about: to generate some atomic capacity to deter the United States from regime-change intervention! As mentioned previously, only the nuclear capability can be the big "equalizer" and dissuade potential imperialist intentions even on a conventional military level.

 

Did the world not watch or forget about what happened not long ago, i.e., in Libya, in 2011, at the Obama/Clinton cabinet's hands, when U.S. and NATO forces launched an air campaign to support dubious insurgent groups against the Libyan military and government forces? Such was the reward Libya's leader Muammar Gadhafi, murdered in the streets, received for his retreat from pursuing nuclear weapons and his trust and handshake with Obama and incumbent European heads of state at the time. And have we not observed what the U.S. did to Syria in the misguided and failed regime-change attempt to oust President Assad, arming terrorists and insurgents, supporting al-Qaeda and ISIS and other groups in the region, causing unspeakable and unnecessary mayhem? Now the Russians had to restore stability and prop Assad, and at this point, it is not hard to predict that the Syrian intervention attempt will end up as a massive embarrassment for the United States. Aside from that: What about all the waste of human life and treasure on both sides? Were some military-industrial profit and the satisfaction of Mr. Obama's ideological arrogance indeed worth the chaos, the cost of lives, and the unleashing of refugees and displaced people onto the shores of Europe?

 

As unfortunate as the most likely acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by North Korea is, it comes for good reasons and a clear rationale that the North Korean regime hides behind its seemingly erratic behavior. The U.S.' policy failures nourished this rationale.

 

The U.S. and the international community should further pursue containment and denuclearization of the Korean peninsula; however, they should not make it a condition for peace. The probable possession of specific nuclear capabilities of North Korea does not and must not justify a preemptive strike.

 

Instead of further pursuing hypocritical foreign affairs policies that cause more trouble than resolving issues, it is high time to arrive at some collective realization of past follies in foreign affairs among Washington's elites and to change course.

 

This nation and its leader need to eliminate the war-mongering neoliberal and neoconservative nomenclature in the U.S. State Department and among the advisory bodies to the White House. Leaders of nations cannot know everything, but we expect them to have an excellent and pragmatic judgment that enables them to choose wisely among policy proposals. Without wise choice offered, they will most likely fail.

Disastrous Foreign Policy Failures Continue in Syria

The United Nations has estimated that the two years of civil war in Syria generated about 15,000 casualties among the military and security forces and 10,000 insurgent casualties. Civilian casualties numbered 45,000. 

 

In light of what had happened previously in Egypt and Libya, where weak and divided governments came to power, a prediction for Syria would have come easy. Any objective observer could have foreseen that the opposition to Bashar al-Assad's autocratic regime in Syria would soon be hijacked by Islamic extremism, leading to uncontrolled violence. While the demonstrations in Syria in 2011 might have been peaceful and moderate in their initial stages, extremist forces linked to Al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood soon infiltrated the movement. They began to utilize it for their purposes. Lakdhar Brahimi, the Special Envoy to Syria for the UN and the Arab League, reports that the rebel forces comprise individuals of some 38 different nationalities, among them Muslims from the United Kingdom and continental Europe. 

 

The Supreme Military Council set up by the opposition shows overwhelmingly Islamist tendencies, and the opposition-controlled areas of Syria are already subject to Sharia Law. Meanwhile, the United Nations and the UK are confident that it was the jihadist rebels, not government forces, who fired a chemical weapons grenade into Khan-al-Assal. 

 

Against this backdrop, it appears absurd that the US and other Western governments are contemplating supplying arms and weaponry to the rebel forces. There is no way to discern pro-western opposition forces from Muslim extremists and channel armament accordingly. In their desperation over the chaos that evolved over the past two years, the US, France, the UK, and Turkey recognized the Syrian National Coalition as Syria's interim government, even though heavily dominated by members linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. 

  

In commenting on the Libyan situation (see respective essays from March 2011 https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2011/03/us-and-european-foreign-policy-blunder.html and October 2011 https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2011/10/lessons-from-muammar-gadhafis-demise. html), I warned about politically and militarily supporting dubious insurgent radicals in Egypt and Libya. In analogy, the warnings correspondingly apply to the Syrian case as well. 

I argued that transatlantic foreign policy, led and dominated by the United States, is politically short-sighted, unethical in principle, and ideologically driven. The sheer irrational belief in democracy as the panacea for all problems is devoid of deeper considerations of sound political philosophy. The West keeps waging an unjust and meaningless war in Afghanistan, continues to back insurgents in Egypt and Libya, and now lends support to Syria's unjust, violent campaign.  

 

Instead of supporting established political leaders in Egypt, Libya, and now Syria, dubious insurgent forces, pretending democratic goals while pursuing radical objectives, receive political, diplomatic, and even military support. We are facing the results of these failed policies in the whole region: Loss of human life and the amount of human suffering far outweigh the practicality of the conflict; affected nations are worse off than before; radical Muslim forces gain influence; Al-Qaeda is on the rise; Iran feels emboldened; Western power diminishes. 

 

Whether we can ever neutralize the past years' foreign policy failures is doubtful, yet remains to be seen. For now, it appears more likely that particularly the mishandling of the case of Syria will entail the most hurtful consequences as the country is a significant landmark where strategic interests of East and West collide.