Trump's Syria Moment

While Mueller is goading the president into making a political mistake by taking the egregious act of raiding his personal lawyer, the neocons are turning the thumbscrews on Trump to do their bidding in the Middle East. It's not just that the Syrian chemical attacks were predictable, it's that they were predicted. 11 days ago Trump signaled an imminent withdrawal from Syria. There was significant commentary in conservative forums to the effect of, "brace for a chemical attack any day now." Five days later there was a chemical attack. Isn't it strange how Assad always commits a chemical assault on innocent civilians right when the neocons need him to? Either he is extraordinarily bad at presidenting with a statistically improbable sense of timing, or he's being framed. Nine days after Trump announced his plan to shortly withdraw, we see headlines like this, from Republican Senator Susan Collins. (The same liberal Senator who voted to keep Obamacare.)

Boy, that turned around quick. That, after three rounds of this, people are still falling for the ruse, is incredible. The big question is how Trump will respond. Judging by his statements, he plans to take swift action against Assad, and possibly even Russia, as the neocons hope he will.

The last time this happened, Trump obliged with a limited strike against Syrian military assets. They're hoping he'll go further this time. He faces a difficult decision here. But of course he does. That was always part of the gig. He campaigned to end the deep state's ineffective imperial foreign policy. A showdown was inevitable. Obama encountered the same predicament. He campaigned on scaling back US imperialism. When he encountered resistance from the deep state he folded entirely. He was rewarded for doing so, by not being constantly demonized by the media or having his lawyer's office ransacked by rogue intelligence agencies. It's good to be king, as long as you do what you're told.

There is a deep-state or neoconservative or imperialist agenda (call it what you will) at play here, and that agenda has some degree of merit. The great fear of American foreign policy planners has been the rise of a Shiite superstate. It just so happens that most of the places with energy reserves happen to sit under lands populated by Shia. Even the richest fields of Saudi Arabia lie under the Shia-majority segment of that country. With the fracking and shale oil booms in North America, this is of diminishing importance to America the nation, but America the empire is still gravely concerned with securing energy supplies for Europe (and reducing Russia's leverage over them), controlling oil exports to opponents like China, and, most importantly, maintaining the dollar's status as the global reserve currency for energy trades. A recent article by Time - in which they managed to restrain themselves and not call Trump a racist or criminal throughout the entirety of the piece - summarized Trump's newest Arabian friend and apparent ally, the future Saudi king,

Iran, through proxy militias and regional allies, will establish a overland supply route that leads from Beirut through Syria and Iraq to Tehran, Bin Salman said. The so-called “Shiite Crescent” would give Iran a greater foothold in a tumultuous region through a string of allies.

There it is. In two sentences. The Saudi monarch is a more reliable source of sober geo-political analysis than most of what comes from the American press. It is absolutely true. Attacking Assad boosts our Arabian allies (who under Obama were terrible allies, but perhaps that has changed with new leadership on both sides) and hurts our Persian opponents. Allowing a Shia-controlled overland supply route works against our energy aspirations. But doing so comes with a cost. The last administration weakened the Assad government and gave breathing room (and breathing money) that resulted in ISIS - a brutal Jihadi state that exported terrorism globally - and a destabilizing refugee crisis in Europe. Those results set the new standard for foreign policy blunders. It surely must be the greatest foreign policy failure in history, at least since the appeasement of Hitler. And they're wanting more of the same. More destabilizing of Assad, more aid to radical Islamists. It is almost certain that attacking Assad will condemn the Syrians to further decades of strife and poverty. And, if our recent history is any lesson, the results will probably end up being worse than what we started with. (We'd never have had this encroaching Shiite threat to begin with if Bush had kept his ass out of Iraq.)

If he doesn't act against Syria, then the Shia superstate threat still looms. Also, Russia keeps her naval station on this side of the Dardanelles, which isn't greatly troubling unless you're a rabidly Russophobic liberal/neocon. If Trump takes out Assad, he walks back on the most significant aspects of his foreign-policy campaign rhetoric and risks sinking himself into another great American quagmire. Even more troubling is that Putin is making very stern statements regarding US military action against Syria. Some bloggers, such as The Saker, report that Russians are increasingly coming to the conclusion that war with the US is inevitable. Putin may be a lot of things (like a corrupt dictator), but a liar and a bluffer? When it comes to official pronouncements, he is very careful with his words. Dire warnings should not be casually disregarded. US intervention in Syria carries the very real risk of a hot war between the world's nuclear superpowers.

More personally, if Trump takes on Assad he's going to infuriate his base. His last bombardment of Syria was met with great outrage and defections from noted supporters such as Paul Joseph Watson and Michael Savage. Conversely, if he does not take action against Syria he risks infuriating...the people who already hate him, pretty much. On the face of it, taking action against Syria amounts to political suicide. His base can punish him by pulling their support. His opponents can punish him by...what? They are already punishing him at greater than 100% capacity. That is, they are punishing him so much that they are damaging themselves faster than Trump. The media has now discredited itself according to the majority of the American public, whereas Trump has an approval rating over 50%. The deep state is engaging in openly illegal operations against Trump, which will likely backfire and erode American faith in those institutions.

They can't punish him more; they can only promise to punish him less. That's the deal with the Devil that Trump may make. He executes their foreign policy, they lay off the constant hate rhetoric in the media, and call off Mueller's Special Coup. The snake can't be trusted, either to act in good faith, or even to have the ability to restrain the Trump Hate Machine they've created. But, from Trump's position, it sure must be tempting.

What should he do? The position of this blog has always been that Assad is the rightful ruler of Syria and should remain so. There is no practical proposal that I'm aware of that replaces him with anything remotely stable. Respecting his rule seems to be both the proper and the most pragmatic option. Preventing a Shia superstate is a worthy goal, but that doesn't give us license to engage in more foreign disasters. However, given Trump's statements on the matter, his past actions against Syria, and his recent appointment of John Bolton as his NSA, I suspect his actions will be more pleasing to the neocons than his supporters. Hopefully I am proven wrong.