CNN: Putin Now Owns Syrian Mess, And It’s All Trump’s Fault Or Something

Let’s face it: Syria is not an issue most Americans really care about. There are only about 2,000 U.S. military members in the nation, mostly as advisors. The issue of the Kurds is concerning, but, what would 2,000 military members actually do? The only thing that was a concern was when Obama set a red line, and then failed to back it up. Remember, Obama placed it on the international community. And, interestingly, Obama’s name never comes up in this CNN “analysis” which really is attempting to make a Russia Russia Russia connection

US is out of the picture in Syria-Turkey crisis. Putin now owns this mess

As US President Donald Trump hailed the agreement his administration negotiated with the Turks for northern Syria as “a great day for civilization,” the Turks quickly dumped cold water over the White House’s euphoria, refusing to even call the deal a ceasefire.

Only a few hours later, airstrikes and artillery fire could be felt in northern Syria as the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces accused Ankara and its proxies of severe ceasefire violations.

The mood both in Washington and in the Middle East is that the ceasefire is not the real deal. It expires on Tuesday, October 22, the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recip Tayyip Erdogan will meet in Sochi to discuss the future of Syria. It seems pretty clear: that’s when the world will find out that the real deal will be for the future of this volatile region.

It’s also clear that the future will, to a large extent, be determined by the Russian President. With Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds, America’s main allies in the fight against ISIS, and his de facto green lighting of Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria, the White House maneuvered itself out of the Syria equation. For better or worse, Putin now owns the military and political mess unfolding there.

But unlike the Trump administration’s hectic efforts at last-minute diplomacy to try to end the bloodshed it helped unleash, Putin at least seemed like a man with a plan.

Russia immediately started negotiations with the Kurds and Moscow’s main ally, the Assad government, quickly reaching a deal to allow the Syrian military into Kurdish-held areas where Damascus has not had a presence for years in order to stave off the Turkish-led offensive. Moscow also quickly deployed its own military as a buffer to keep the Turks and their forces apart from the Kurds and Syrian government troops.

Trump’s plan is pretty easy: don’t have U.S. military members in Syria, which has had a civil war going on since 2011. Yes, 2011. It was part of the wider Arab Spring, which, if you remember, Obama blew off. Hey, remember when Syrian strongman Bashar Assad was being called a reformer by the Obama administration?

Anyhow, CNN sure seems to love Putin now, eh? When they can try to bludgeon Trump with the issue, right? Through the next 15 paragraphs, which include a section about all roads leading to Moscow (um, Syria has been a client state of Russia (and Iran), in their sphere of influence, for a long, long time, like back during the Cold War era), they laud Putin

(Arab Weekly) Obama handed over the whole Syrian file to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Obama was once outraged by the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons against its opponents in Eastern Ghouta and threatened to use the tremendous firepower of the American giant. Aircraft carriers and naval ships ploughed their way towards the Mediterranean and the parliaments of US allies were mobilised. It was the brink of a major war.

Suddenly, here came Putin, offering to take care of the “dirty work” on behalf of the world’s major democracies. “Do not dirty your hands and let me do it my way,” he told them. Indeed, Putin delivered Syria’s chemical weapons to the world. Damascus handed over its arsenal and Washington and the western alliance handed Syria over to Putin.

Since Obama gave the green light to the Russian leader to begin his military intervention in Syria in September 2015, Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry — Russia’s and the United States’ highest-ranking diplomats at the time — established the sacred texts in politics, security and the military that keep the Western world abreast with the Russian baptism of fire in Syria.

We never should have gotten involved in the first place

(Huff Post) Obama’s geopolitical strategy is also going badly. What once seemed a hopeless stalemate between what remains of the regime of Bashar Assad and various anti-Assad forces changed dramatically when Russian air power entered the war.

The turn against American influence began not yesterday but in fact three years ago, amid what seemed at least to Obama to be a successful turn of events.

That three years ago was 2013, when Obama handed over the keys to Russia. The U.S. was barely involved at that time, other than some advisors and diplomacy. But, somehow, this is all Trump’s mess. CNN is like “Obama who?” Despite blaming everything bad on George W. Bush during Obama’s first term. The only thing really missing is a direct blame that Trump is doing Putin’s bidding.