T. Belman. Langfan is a little too flippant for my taste but at least he is thinking out of the box.
Trump is cleverly seeing to it that Russia needs Israel to keep Iran at bay – or lose Syria to the Iranian octopus. He is also sending other messages to the Middle East Arab countries.
While many pundits have gone hysterical over President Trump’s Syrian pullout, President Trump really had no choice but to employ his own “Samson Option,” one in which he knocked over everyone’s toys and theories.
Firstly, President Trump isn’t “gifting” Putin a “Christmas present,” but rather is hanging a deadly Syrian Albatross on Putin’s neck. Without American forces east of the Euphrates and American dollars helping Syrian reconstruction, Putin faces an Iranian victory in Syria, and a Russian loss. In fact, Russian rapprochement with Israel is a direct result of American withdrawal. Now, Russia has only Israel to help keep Iran’s gobbling up of Syria in check. If Putin looks to Turkey to check Iran, the unacceptably high payment will be Turkish ownership of Northern Syria.
Putin is now hopelessly up a Syrian creek without a paddle.
Secondly, President Trump told all the the Arabs in Iraq and Saudi Arabia: Either fight Iran yourselves and pay for the fight yourselves, or bow as slaves to your new Persian masters. America can’t afford either the money or the blood to fight the Arab war of liberation against the Persian colonialist Iran. The training wheels are off. America will help at the edges, but the fight has to be an Arab fight against Iranian Persian hegemony.
Thirdly, President Trump’s message to the Pentagon is: You can spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in a year fighting and dying in foreign wars, but you can’t afford to or are legally barred from physically defending the American border, or pay for a defensive wall to slow the migrant invasions? Charity and defense begins at home. If America’s home base isn’t secure, nothing is secure.
To make matters worse, the Pentagon just “missed” an “accounting error” consisting of spending 331 million dollars paying for Saudi refueling over Yemen, but nobody at DOD can find a single penny to pay for the wall? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Fourthly, President Trump’s message to the world is: America can’t afford to protect you any more. President Trump, the businessman, is looking at the total American budget, the deficit and America’s debt, and concluded: A bankrupt “world policeman,” is a defeated America that can’t defend itself or anyone else. America’s current military projection is financially unsustainable. The world had better quickly budget for its defense, because America can’t continue to foot the bill.
Fifthly, President Trump’s message to Turkey is: You’ve told me ISIS is defeated, America’s allies are terrorists, and you were going to attack American forces in Syria; well, goodbye and good luck. Trump didn’t believe a word Erdogan said, but Trump believed his intelligence that Turkey, an alleged NATO ally, was scheming with Russia behind America’s back on Syria. Now, Erdogan will now have to deal with the Kurds, Russia, ISIS, and Iran all by himself. Have fun. Without America propping up the Kurds, Turkey might actually realize the truth that the Kurds are Turkey’s greatest natural ally against Iran and ISIS.
Sixthly, President Trump’s unintended message to Israel: If you give up an inch of the Judea and Samaria aka”West Bank” under my crazy “Deal of the Century,” you’re stupider than a rock. Relying on a Trump “Peace” deal is like riding blindfolded on a Trump banana peel on an MBS/Saudi skate-board against traffic on a six-lane Iran super-highway. Syria isn’t just Iran’s pathway to Lebanon, but to any “West Bank” Palestinian Arab State. Israel better solidify its hold of the “West Bank” quickly because the next American President (either sooner or later) will likely be an Israel-hating BDS-supporting democrat who will overtly call Israel an Apartheid State.
In short, President Trump was faced with a no-win situation, and decided to be a modern-day American Samson, and knock everybody down.
@ yamit82:
Yamit, if we face WWIII, bankrupt defense industries will be the least of our worries. There won’t be any factories or anyone living to work in them. And probably no money or economy. Maybe no people at all.
@ yamit82: You are right, I think , about U.S. intentions when it gives aid to Israel. Whether Israel can raise the 3 billion dollars in U.S. aid from its own already overtaxed citizens is another matter.
@ yamit82: I can’t remember the names of the experts who advised the USG to adopt this approach even before Trump adopted it, but several of them are named in the latest issue of AI monitor. They include the author of the article, an Israeli.
Becuause Trump prefers secrecy, I have no idea what he told them. But they are continuing their fight against iSIS, and were recently resupplied by the U.S. to enable them to continue the fight.
I had thought before that Trump had given an unconditional “green light” to the go after the Syrian Kurds. But it now seems likely that there were strings attached to the green light. AI Monitor says that he first extracted a promise from Erdogan not to use unrestained force against the Kurds, and to make an effort to reach a truce with them, not only in Syria, but even within Turkey. I don’t know whether or not Trump hinted to Erdogan that he would impose sanctions on Turkey if he breaks his word. But it is possible he did.
Trump usually prefers to deal in secret with foreign leaders. One reason for this preference may be that it allows them to save face and avoid a confrontation with their own supporters if they agree to anything their followers may not approve of.
I am encouraged by the report that the Americans recently delivered 150 tons of supplies to the Kurds. This may give them some ability to resist if Erdogan mounts a brutal attack on them. And in that happens, the Americans may be able to resupply the Kurds, possibly from the U.S. bases in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. Of course, until American troops complete their withdrawal from the Kurdish area–which AI and Debka say may take longer than the 8-12 weeks announced by Trump–Erdogan will be reluctant to risk bombing the Americans embedded with the Kurds. That would give the United States a casus belli to hit the Turks hard. All this gives both parties a motive for seeing reason and negotiating a truce.
I don’t know whether or not Trum’s gamble that he can pull American troops out of Syria without harming its people worse than they suffering now, and perhaps even improving the prospect s for a negotiated settlement, will work or not. As Ted says, time will tell. But I do think Trump is a shrewd old bird who knows just what he is doing and why he is doing it. He is a shrewd judge of other people’s character and motivations as a result of his business experience. And his willingness to think and act out of the box is a welcome, necessery change for American foreign policy, which has been stuck in the same rut for 75 years.
adamdalgliesh Said:
It is the same with regards to Trump. adamdalgliesh Said:
Who are those experts? What did the Kurds tell him? To go ahead and pull the troops out? You are grasping at any straw to defend the indefensible (Pathetic)
@ adamdalgliesh:
Haaaa If it doesn’t work then we face WW3 and bankrupt defense industries
@ adamdalgliesh:
America never ever intervened in a conflict out of the goodness of it’s warm heart. Each intervention and deployment was deemed rightly or wrongly in the American interest….There was never any freebees some call it bribes others buying influence and forced trade at higher prices and bad terms were always the price. When Israel wanted to purchase Airbus because of cost and more favorable terms than Boeing the Congress put pressure on Israel to buy Boeing. This is one example of thousands all detrimental to our own industries and taxpayers. America is neither friend or ally of Israel the relationship is that of Master and vassal. What is given as aid is essentially bribes to 1- control Israel 2- gain influence in the Arab world as the only power able to influence and control Israel and for a few lousy bucks. Israel is not so poor that we can’t make up 3 billion in our defense budget without the political strings America imposes on us.
@ adamdalgliesh:
I really love unabashed apologists for Trump that borders on being a cult follower….. Watching Col Hunt on Fox just now and he says you are wrong 100% Based on my experience you are wrong 200%, I am sure Ivanka and her idiot Hubby were his main advisers 😛 He is following the Obama formula exactly and expecting different results and that makes him all the more the fool.
Excellent article, the author told something we did not know.
Because Trump prefers to operate in secret, it’s never easy to know the details of the deals he works out with America’s adversaries or presumed “friends.” But he does want to send a message to America’s allies that our committments to protect them with our own soldiers are not open-ended and permanent. At some point, he is telling them, they will have to find a way to protect themselves. He is willing to arm them, but not give them direct military support, unless the U.S. homeland is under immediate threat. He wants to reverse the American overcommittment to foreign countries all over the world that were made during Cold War I. I agree with this over-all approach. Israel, in particular, must learn to shed its reliance on an American Big Brother and become more independent and self-reliant. As far as his over-all strategic concept goes, Trump is right.
I have suspected all along that Trump has a consistent policy of wanting to limit America’s overseas military involvements, which he thinks are not doing much for American security, and shift the national security focus to protecting America’s borders. I have also suspected all along that he believes that the U.S. can’t afford to maintain its present level of military spending without damaging the economy in the long run. Finally, he thinks that the best way for America to cope with its enemies is to let them fight among themselves, without the U.S. “policing” them and “keep order.” “Let’s you and him fight.” A sensible and well-thought-out, consistent strategy, although high-risk. It may or may not work.
The latest reports from Debka and AI Monitor indicate that Trump has acted more responsibly and with much greater preparation and forethought than initial reports alleged.Langfan’s analysis also supports this conclusion.Trump kept his plan secret from his own top advisors, or at any rate some of them. But that may be because he didn’t trust them not to leak the plans prematurely or reign in protest before he was ready to announce it. Being devious and being irresponsible are not always the same thing.
Clearly Trump was following the advice of some analysts who have been monitoring the Syrian situation closely, such as the experts cited by AI Monitor. He propably even consulted with the Kurdish leaders. He is struggling to bring about a ‘deal of the century” in Syria that will result in a settlement that is reasonably fair to everyone, while at the same time giving the U.S. a viable exit strategy. It may or may not work, but it is a reasonable gamble. And it is probably reversible if the Kurds and America’s allies face a real catastrophe at the hands of Erdogan or Assad.