Vlad, My Friend, I Have a Thank-You Gift For You. Here's Syria!
On This Day In 2017
Remember the Arab Spring of the early 2010s? The promise of sweet democracy was blooming in the Middle Eastern air, even in long-repressed Syria. Across that nation, citizens were rising up against the brutality of President Assad, who resorted to using nerve gas to suppress them. For this, the UN accused Assad of committing “war crimes against the Syrian people.”
So President Obama backed the fledgling Syrian democracy movement in 2013 by expanding a CIA program which trained fighters there.
Russia, though, actively backed Assad’s regime. Putin even tried to claim that U.S. support was aimed at undermining Russia.
Trump flips, then flops: On April 7, 2017, Trump authorized U.S. forces to launch 59 cruise missiles against a Syrian airfield in retaliation for yet another Assad chemical attack which killed scores of civilians. Wow! Trump takes a stand his predecessor Obama might have approved of! What a day for democracy!
Our UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, proclaimed, “in no way do we see peace in that area with Assad at the head of the Syrian government.”
But Putin saw things differently. So, perhaps not surprisingly, the American president fell in line with his Russian “good friend.” So, OTDI 2017, Trump-the-Appeaser abruptly terminated the CIA mission in Syria. According to his staffers, Trump wanted to find ways to “work with Russia.”
Eventually, Trump pulled the US out of Syria entirely. As the Washington Post put it: “President Trump’s surprise decision to withdraw forces from Syria presented a rare and unmistakable victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose relationship with the Trump administration has been anything but predictable.”
They continued: “With the departure of U.S. troops, Moscow would become the undisputed international power broker in the war-torn country and win an opportunity to consolidate a countrywide victory for its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.” The misery in Syria has continued to this day.
At the most recent debate, Trump promised he would end wars even before he takes office in ’25. Just keep his actual track record in mind as you listen to his current fantasies.
Dive Deeper
The Washington Post reported on Obama’s covert CIA program
They also reported on the airstrike on Syria
And, they broke the story on Trump’s decision to end the CIA program
Watch a YouTube video on the end of the CIA program
NBC News had Nikki Haley’s comment
John Hudson, Paul Sonne, and Anton Troianovski at The WaPo commented on Putin’s big win
Pic: OpenArt.ai