RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://freebeacon.com/blog/israelis-nervous-about-u-s-withdrawal-from-syria-fearing

The Netanyahu government is projecting calm about President Donald Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, but no one in Israel, from politicians to pundits, thinks it is good news.

Israel’s main fear is that the withdrawal of U.S. forces will create a vacuum into which Iran will expand, affording it greater freedom of action. Iran’s ultimate goal is to build its long-dreamed-of land bridge to the Mediterranean—a corridor stretching through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

That scenario is unacceptable from Israel’s point of view. Since 2017, it has launched over 200 bombing strikes against Iranian targets in Syria, mainly to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining advanced precision missile capabilities.

Noam Amir, defense commentator for Israel’s Channel 20, summed up the general feeling: “It’s a wonderful gift for Putin, a wonderful gift for Assad. And to our great sorrow, it’s a magnificent gift to the Iranians, who are themselves in complete shock that Trump is doing this at all.”

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former research division head of IDF military intelligence, similarly warned in Israel’s most widely circulated daily that the White House decision would “open the way to Iran, to transferring equipment by way of land through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon. It should definitely worry Israel.”

The harshest criticisms came from Netanyahu’s own government, albeit anonymously. A senior minister in Israel’s government called the American withdrawal “a spoiled opportunity, because Russia has been demanding for a long time that the U.S. pull its forces out of Syria. It would have been possible to demand of the Russians the pullout of Iranian forces from Syria, at least partially, in exchange for American forces leaving.”

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/iranian-corridor-syria/

The surprise announcement by US President Donald Trump to pull American forces out of Syria has led to concern that Iran can now complete its “land bridge” from Tehran to Beirut.

In responding to President Trump’s surprise announcement of a withdrawal of all US forces from Syria on Wednesday, Israeli PM Netanyahu issued a brief statement that contained two messages.

“This is, of course, an American decision,” he said, emphasizing that it is not Israel’s place to tell its senior partner where to deploy troops. This is an important message to send, as it shows respect for America’s internal decisions on the use of military force.

Officially, Israel must not play a part in the argument now raging between the American defense establishment and Trump.

At the same time, Netanyahu’s statement did not contain any praise for the decision. This reflects real concern on Israel’s part over how the American exit will affect the regional balance of power.

“We will study its timetable, how it will be implemented, and, of course, its implications for us,” said the prime minister. “In any case, we will take care to maintain the security of Israel and to defend ourselves in this area.”

These comments are hardly a warm endorsement. Netanyahu’s statement reflects a veiled warning to the toxic regional actor that is set to most immediately benefit from Trump’s step: Iran.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/21/trumps-syria-withdrawal-policy-is-correct-but-communicated-horribly/

“Trump Criticized For Breaking With Longstanding American Tradition Of Remaining In Middle Eastern Countries Indefinitely,” joked the Babylon Bee upon the news President Donald Trump is bringing troops home from Syria, but the joke wasn’t far from the truth at all.

The news deeply angered the Washington foreign policy consensus, which argues that troops should stay in the region indefinitely even though the stated mission of defeating ISIS has been accomplished.

It’s true that Trump’s decision to depart Syria was sudden and poorly communicated. Viewed one way, however, it was not a complete surprise. Since at least 2013, Trump has repeatedly argued against the idea we need a sustained conflict in Syria:

During the campaign, he reiterated his views. But then he started sounding quite different, including getting belligerent with Russia over Syria:

Just a few weeks prior to that last tweet, Trump said he’d bring troops home very soon and laid out a bit of the rationale publicly in the video from March below:

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272339/trump-bests-geniuses-syria-kenneth-r-timmerman

As one Democrat sputtered on national radio, “The Secretary of Defense just resigned, we’re pulling out of Syria. WHAT’S GOING ON?”

What’s going on is that Donald Trump, maligned by Democrats and the media as a petulant dummy, and worse, is doing what they could never imagine: he is making good on a campaign promise.

He campaigned on waging a real war to defeat ISIS, rather than tiptoeing around the battle in Syria and Iraq as Obama had done.

He committed U.S. troops, U.S. aircraft, and U.S. intelligence and diplomatic assets to the war, while making good on yet another campaign promise by having local forces who bore the brunt of ISIS brutality form the tip of the spear.

That was work the geniuses could never imagine. Only a “dummy” could have done it. A “dummy” who campaigned on telling the truth to the American people, and who has spent the past two years making good on his campaign promises.

The campaign to smash the ISIS caliphate in Iraq ended in victory more than a year ago. The battle to drive ISIS out of Syria ended more recently. Today, ISIS has no significant foothold territorially in either country. As the President said, that was the mission, and we have accomplished it.

Of course, for the geniuses who had been advocating a full-fledged U.S. military intervention in Syria, defeating ISIS was not enough. They hope you will forget that in 2012, they wanted the United States to use our might to support Islamist groups – some of whom later joined ISIS—to unseat Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Failing total victory, their goal was “establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria,” according to a heavily-redacted 2012 intelligence report.

That would be the same ISIS caliphate that President Trump ordered U.S. forces to defeat.