“My attitude was you’re fighting Syria, Syria is fighting ISIS, and you have to get rid of ISIS. Russia is now totally aligned with Syria, and now you have Iran, which is becoming powerful, because of us, is aligned with Syria… Now we’re backing rebels against Syria, and we have no idea who these people are.”

Barack Obama’s foreign policy was geared from the outset on the support and training of the so-called “moderate” rebel groups in order to defeat Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists, and  eventually overthrow Assad. That approach eventually failed this year when Obama’s regime failed to honour its obligations under an agreement with Moscow to separate their moderate rebel forces from internationally-recognized terrorists. Now, President elect Trump is seeking a rapprochement with Russia by taking a soft stance on the Syrian conflict in order to lessen the building tension between the U.S and Russia.

Rapprochement Plan

“My attitude was you’re fighting Syria, Syria is fighting ISIS, and you have to get rid of ISIS. Russia is now totally aligned with Syria, and now you have Iran, which is becoming powerful, because of us, is aligned with Syria… Now we’re backing rebels against Syria, and we have no idea who these people are.”

The president-elect expressed concern that if the US attacks Assad, “we end up fighting Russia, fighting Syria.”

President elect Trump is taking a strategic approach with Russia, which appears to be heading towards a rapprochement  with the Russian leader, whom many consider to be very aggressive in his policies and political approach

In an interview with CBS This Morning, Defense Secretary, Carter accused Russia of ongoing violence in the country, claiming“they’re not doing what we need to do and think needs to be done [in Syria].”

“What the Russians said, if you’ll remember, was that they were going to come in and fight terrorism and help remove Assad,”Carter said. “They haven’t done either of those things. They haven’t done any of that. Carter said the Russians have been completely backward in their approach instead of moving things forward.

“So we have not been able to, and I have not been in favour, and am not recommending to the president that we associate ourselves with or work with the Russians until they start doing the right thing,” Carter concluded.

Russia should do the right thing and pursue the toppling of Assad if the Syrian dictator will not yield to negotiations, but Trump is probably right in not adopting the aggressive role of trying to ensure that Russia topples Assad. A rapprochement with Russia is the right approach to addressing the very tense and dangerous conflict between the U.S and Russia.