Given President Trump’s policy reversal on Syria, the US looks set to remain mired in the 7-year conflict indefinitely. With Syria in rubble, and with the risk of clashes with Russia, our panelists ask, what’s the US strategy?
Speaking during RT’s Crosstalk, hosted by Peter Lavelle, security analyst Mark Sleboda noted that President Trump’s willingness to launch strikes on Syria is at odds with his oft-stated goal of pulling out of the conflict.
“I think the deep state has full control of foreign and military policy as regards Syria,” Sleboda said, citing a recent New York Times op-ed in which an anonymous Trump official described a concerted effort from a group of officials to covertly steer and shape the president’s policies.
“There’s definitely something to this,” economics professor Glenn Diesen agreed. “The US isn’t actually acting as a unitary actor at the moment, given that you have this infighting even within his [Trump’s] own administration.” However, Diesen argued that Syria’s location, in between America’s ally, Israel, and its enemy, Iran, makes involvement inevitable.
Nevertheless, Assad’s forces are looking to push the conflict into its closing stages, at least militarily speaking. Syrian and Russian airstrikes are preparing for the final attack on the province of Idlib – the last redoubt of leader Bashar Assad’s terrorist opposition.
Amid reports of an impending and staged chemical provocation, and with the full might of the US military ready to step in on the side of Al-Qaeda connected ‘rebels’, the Crosstalk panel asks why would America want to get involved? And what’s the US’ long-term strategy in Syria?
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