Trump’s Middle East predicament

– published in Aspenia online –

Donald Trump is at it again: he is trying to prove to his supporters that he is serious about pulling American troops out of the Middle East, as promised during the 2016 election campaign. And once again, the national security institutions are doing whatever they can to make sure that the United States maintain a presence in the area; over the past two years this has involved behind-the-scenes pressure, public criticism, resignations and slow-walking the President’s directives.

In the case of Trump’s decision to “abandon” the Kurds, the opposing argument is loud and clear: if we do not keep our word, nobody will be able to trust us. Not surprisingly, this was the same argument used broadly to criticize Barack Obama after his decision not to attack the Syrian government in 2013, when Bashar al-Assad had apparently crossed the “red line” defined by the White House regarding chemical weapons attacks. Obama did go back on his public threat – although it is known that in private there were doubts about the true authorship of the Ghouta incident – but he ultimately stated how proud he was of not having given in to the group think in Washington at the time, and avoiding another regime change war in the Middle East.

Read the article on Aspenia online