America Folds

20 July 2017

Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

US to Halt Arms Shipments to Syrian Rebels

The US program of sending weapons to certain Syrian rebel groups is coming to an end. The Trump administration has already agreed to a cease-fire in the southwest part of the country where the Assad government is largely in control. Combined, they represent a clear attempt to remove obstacles from the path of improved US-Russian relations. However, it would appear that the Trump administration has simply given away the store.

This journal backed arming of the Syrian rebels when the Arab Spring was still blooming but argued that the weaponry should come from Muslim nations, not the US. The Obama administration sent American munitions and guns to the rebels openly making them surrogates of the US. Thus, they need to be removed from the fighting if US-Russian relations are to improve. Had they been armed by Muslim nations, the US could disavow them; they would not be an obstacle.

When the Russians intervened on behalf of Damascus, the outcome of the Syrian Civil War was no longer in doubt. President Assad would remain in power if that is what the Russians wanted. Continuation of his regime is not the Russian objective, though. The Russians want their naval and land bases in Syria, and any government that permits them to retain those bases would probably be acceptable to them. It just so happens that the Assad government lets the Russians use Syrian territory.

Washington seems to think that Mr. Assad is not a problem, but that ISIS is. This is the same ISIS that lost Mosul in Iraq earlier this month, the same ISIS whose leader al-Baghdadi may be dead, the same ISIS that is besieged in their only remaining urban stronghold of Raqqa, Syria. The White House wants Russia as an ally in a war that is ending of its own accord.

The Trump administration failed to make the disarmament of the rebels a bargaining counter. The deal, which Mr. Art-of-the-Deal missed, could have been disarmament in exchange for rebel participation in a non-Assad government that let the Russians stay on. This approach might have failed to engage the enthusiasm of Moscow, the rebels or the Syrian people, let alone the Damascus government, but the president gave away the CIA arms program in exchange for nothing. So, the world will never know.

What is particularly unfortunate here is the Trump administration's desperation to improve relations with Russia combined with the ties many of the administration's people had with the Russians during the campaign. It would be hard to convince a fair-minded observer that a quid pro quo (election help in exchange for Syria) is impossible.

Better relations, of course, would be a good thing. However, better relations require both sides to change their behavior. Russia is not the only party to feel aggrieved, although Mr. Trump seems to think there is nothing the Russians need to do to make things better. The US, for its part, needs to see the Russians end their cyberattacks on other nations, a withdrawal of support for the rebels in eastern Ukraine and some cooperation on North Korea -- as a start.

The fact is that relations improve as both sides work to make the other more comfortable. When one side simply gives in across the board as the Trump administration seems eager to do, nothing really changes. The winning side always seems to find more problems to be addressed, while the side that yields gets nothing in return. It is the relationship of a parasite and host, not of two equals in a mutually advantageous symbiosis.

One expects the Americans to give away more soon.

© Copyright 2017 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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