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‘Wickedly Complex Situation’: Trump Will Face Another Foreign Policy Powder Keg On Day One

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Wallace White

President-elect Donald Trump will have to deal with another volatile situation in Syria as a new faction toppled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year regime, setting the stage for another potentially protracted conflict.

The al-Assad dictatorship came crashing down Saturday after rebels led by Islamic group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized Syria’s capital in Damascus, bringing a bloody conflict to a close that has raged since 2011. However, the potential for conflicts among other rebel factions mixed in with Israeli, Russian and U.S. operations in the country creates a precarious situation that could ignite at any moment, presenting the incoming Trump-Vance administration with a major foreign policy challenge on day one.

“It’s a wickedly complex situation that definitely has a lot of U.S. interest,” Brent Sadler, senior research fellow for the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “I think that’s the first thing to acknowledge upfront is [that] it doesn’t necessarily mean we have to be more militarily engaged than we are already, but at the same time signaling readiness to reward those that share our interests and values, and to punish those who don’t. It’s the early days, quite frankly, to know exactly how the power situation is going to play out in Syria.”

HTS was designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization in 2018 under the Trump administration, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The group first organized in 2017 when the former leader of al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, split with the organization over strategic differences.

Al-Jawlani was formerly detained by U.S. forces during the invasion of Iraq, being let out in 2011, according to The Wall Street Journal. Al-Jawlani reportedly expressed a moderate position on minorities like Christians staying in their country, however some are still anxious as to what he may ultimately end up doing on the matter.

“At some point back in 2018 to 2019, al-Jawlani makes a break from the ideology of ISIS and certainly al-Qaeda, because I think he realized there is no way to unify the Syrian people to topple Assad’s regime without moderating their very radical Salafist ideology,” Sadler told the DCNF. “They’re still Islamist, but I think they’re trying to moderate themselves for very pragmatic reasons.”

The two most influential factions other than HTS include the U.S.-backed Kurdish Syrian Defense Force (SDF) and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA).

The SNA formed in 2017 out of various rebel groups in northern Syria to oppose the Assad regime and HTS, according to Middle East Eye. However, SNA joined the most recent offensive alongside HTS after the group took the city of Aleppo, according to Reuters.

The SNA are also currently fighting the SDF as well in the wake of Assad’s collapse, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) Tuesday.

With HTS’ ascendancy adding profound uncertainty to the region, Trump stated in a post on Truth Social Saturday that he wants the U.S. to stay uninvolved in Syria, saying there was not much to gain for the U.S. in direct involvement at this time.

“What the Trump administration needs to think about is, ‘where in this does U.S. interest lie? How do we influence what’s happening there to our advantage?’” Simone Ledeen, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, told the DCNF. “Also, it’s important to note we have troops on the ground in Syria, and they’ve been taking fire for the last four years. What’s our desired strategic end-state in Syria? What do we need them to accomplish, besides taking fire from Iranian proxies?”

The U.S. operates al-Tanf military base in southern Syria, which has also served as the headquarters for operations against ISIS since 2016, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. During Assad’s rule, the U.S. operated the base against his will.

Currently, the U.S. has 900 troops stationed in Syria, according to the Pentagon. Trump, who ran on ending “forever wars,” attempted to withdraw troops from Syria in 2018 but faced enormous pushback from foreign policy hawks of both parties. Ultimately, the U.S. retained some troops in the nation mainly for anti-ISIS operations, according to Politico.

Israel has taken advantage of the power vacuum, seizing strategically vital areas in the Golan Heights region in southern Syria, according to The Washington Post Monday. The newly seized positions put Damascus within Israeli artillery range, Sadler told the DCNF.

The U.S. also conducted strikes on Sunday with Israel against ISIS targets.

In Damascus, the rebels appointed Mohamed al-Bashir, a former HTS opposition government member, as interim prime minister to solidify unity in the rebel front, according to Reuters Tuesday. John Hardie, Russia program deputy director at the FDD, told the DCNF that Trump needs to stay involved enough to work with whoever ends up maintaining power in the region.

“I think the next administration and their allies are really going to have to resist the temptation just to kind of watch from the sidelines,” Hardie told the DCNF. “We’re going to have to play an active role. I think our very small economy-of-force military presence we have in eastern Syria is a good thing for keeping a lid on ISIS. And I would hope that the next administration will kind of work hard with the actors who are coming to power, whatever that new government looks like.”

While Russia’s influence took a massive hit from the fall of Assad, Trump will still have to deal with their remaining pockets of influence while trying to negotiate peace in Ukraine.

Russia’s main chance at influencing the region is through the Alawites living on Syria’s western coast where Tartous Naval Base, Russia’s only port on the Mediterranean Sea, is located. The Alawites were a staunchly pro-Assad faction for most of the civil war, according to Reuters.

“Watch the Russians and watch Latakia,” Sadler told the DCNF. “If the Russians think they have a chance of reconstituting any influence, it’s probably going to be in and around their bases in Latakia. And again, that’s the Alawites, so if there’s any hope of that, that’s where it’s going to be.”

However, Hardie thinks now that Assad is out of the picture, the best hope of the Russians regaining their influence in the region lies in cooperating with the rebels.

“The Kremlin is certainly trying to now play nice with these groups, especially HTS,” Hardie told the DCNF. “You may have seen that just a few days ago, were calling them terrorists, and [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov was sort of chiding journalists for calling them ‘opposition’ rather than ‘terrorists,’ and saying they should never be allowed to. Now they’re saying they will engage with all parties, and the Russian state is calling them ‘armed opposition.’”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he will back a Syrian government that respects minorities, condemns terrorism, bars the use of chemical and biological weapons and supports humanitarian assistance, according to a Tuesday press release.

“We continue to monitor the situation in Syria. President Trump is committed to diminishing threats to peace and stability in the Middle East and to protecting Americans here at home,” Trump-Vance Transition Spokesman Brian Hughes told the DCNF Wednesday.

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“HELL WILL RAIN DOWN”: Trump unleashes U.S. military on Yemeni Houthis

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MXM logo MxM News

Quick Hit:

President Trump ordered a massive military assault on Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen on Saturday, vowing to unleash “overwhelming lethal force” after months of attacks on American and allied vessels in the Red Sea.

Key Details:

  • Trump announced the strikes in a Truth Social post, stating, “Today, I have ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen.”

  • He criticized former President Joe Biden for failing to contain the Houthis, saying his response was “pathetically weak” and emboldened the group’s ongoing attacks on commercial and military vessels.

  • The U.S. Navy’s USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group, along with three destroyers and a cruiser, launched the assault, targeting radars, air defenses, and missile systems used to disrupt shipping lanes.

Diving Deeper:

President Trump escalated U.S. military action against Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Saturday, ordering airstrikes on targets in Yemen in response to the group’s repeated attacks on Red Sea shipping. Trump, in a Truth Social post, declared that the U.S. military would not tolerate continued aggression and vowed an overwhelming response.

“The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated,” Trump wrote. “We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective.” He directly warned the Houthis, stating, “YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!”

The strikes, carried out by U.S. Central Command, targeted missile sites, drone launch facilities, and command centers used by the Houthis to strike commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea. U.S. warships and carrier-based fighter jets participated in the mission, marking a significant escalation in efforts to protect international shipping routes.

Trump also issued a direct warning to Iran, demanding that its support for the Houthis “must end immediately.” Addressing Tehran, Trump wrote, “Do NOT threaten the American People, their President…or Worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable and we won’t be nice about it!”

The strikes come after more than a year of escalating attacks by the Houthis, who have targeted over 100 merchant vessels, sunk at least two, and killed multiple sailors since the Israel-Hamas war began. Trump pointed to Biden’s failures in handling the crisis, noting that “it has been over a year since a U.S.-flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden.”

With Trump’s order, the U.S. is making clear that hostile actions in the Red Sea will not go unanswered. As military operations continue, all eyes will be on whether the Houthis and their Iranian backers heed the warning—or face even greater firepower from the U.S. military.

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EU leaders escalate war rhetoric with Russia in stark departure from Trump’s peace push

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From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

Germany’s leading academic authority on its army has said that Europe’s depleted armed forces would be “washed away” by Russia in weeks, and that it could take at least 15 years before Germany was ready for war.

Last night’s European Council summit responded to Donald Trump’s moves to end the war in Ukraine with a commitment to massive European rearmament.

The EU Council published a statement that, “In 2025, it will provide Ukraine with EUR 30.6 billion” and “increased military support” to Ukraine and proposes “a new EU instrument to provide Member States with loans backed by the EU budget of up to EUR 150 billion” in support to “non-EU members” to rebuild “defense.”

The extraordinary announcement comes two days after EU Chief Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen, an elected MEP appointed to the powerful leadership position by other MEPs, proposed to “rearm Europe” with the release of up to 800 billion euros ($867 billion) in funding. Details on how the money will be raised are set to be finalized later in March.

European and British statements on this issue directly contradict and defy moves towards a durable peace made by the Trump administration. They have also been met with stern rebukes from Russia.

Reuters reported two days ago that Trump had vowed to “end this senseless war” and “stop the killing”:

Trump also said he had been in “serious discussions with Russia” and had “received strong signals that they are ready for peace.”

“Wouldn’t that be beautiful?” he said. “It’s time to stop this madness. It’s time to halt the killing. It’s time to end this senseless war. If you want to end wars you have to talk to both sides.”

Trump is attempting to return the Western world back to the traditions of international diplomacy before and during international conflicts to save lives and prevent unnecessary massive destruction.

This is a major turn away from the top priority given to military power in recent decades. That appears to have been driven by globalist forces, including giant military-industrial complexes, moneylenders, and globalist investment companies like Blackrock who greatly profit from continuous war.

The Russians responded with “concern” over the “remilitarization” of Europe, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying the “confrontational rhetoric and confrontational thinking” from Europe goes against efforts to reach a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict.

France – nuclear escalation?

On Wednesday evening French President Emmanuel Macron made a direct address to the French nation in which he described Russia as a “threat to France and Europe” and said he had decided “to open the strategic debate on the protection of our allies on the European continent by our (nuclear) deterrent.” France is the only nuclear armed member state in the EU.

“If he considers us a threat, gathers a meeting of the chiefs of staff of European countries and Britain, says that it is necessary to use nuclear weapons, to prepare for the use of nuclear weapons against Russia, this is certainly a threat,” Lavrov stated.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly emphasized Russia has no intention of invading any other nation or trying to resurrect the Soviet Union. It has been having trouble enough trying to protect endangered Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Eastern Ukraine for the past three years.

There has been no evidence indicating Russia is planning or even capable of invading and conquering other nations, but it has been forced to prepare to repel possible attacks in response to increasing hostility and unwillingness to dialogue from Western globalist leaders.

Reliable analysts have emphasized that the CIA and other deep state entities in the U.S. and Europe, in order to justify their massive military spending and Russian regime change goal, are the ones who have been spreading false rumors that Russia has expansionist objectives.

Putin referred to Macron’s comments with a warning from history:

Some people still can’t sit still. There are still people who want to go back to the times of Napoleon, forgetting how it ended.

In a further sign that the U.S. is pursuing peace independently of the Europeans, Trump has suspended all military aid to Ukraine and cut off U.S. intelligence sharing, moves which dramatically reduce the war fighting capability of the Zelensky regime.

The EU-led initiative to fund European rearmament comes days after U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for a “coalition of the willing” to send troops to Ukraine and continue the supply of arms – whilst talk increases of Zelensky himself being replaced.

“We have to learn from the mistakes of the past, we cannot accept a weak deal which Russia can breach with ease, instead any deal must be backed by strength,” Starmer said, while failing to mention any nations actually willing to join his initiative. So far, none have – though suggestions have been made.

Western nations have been the ones breaching one agreement after another with Russia. Some of those are the promise to not expand NATO “one inch eastward” at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, plus the April 1,2022 Ukraine/Russia initialed agreement in Istanbul to end the Ukraine war, among others.

Starmer’s claim to place “boots on the ground, and planes in the air” did not attract any pledges of support from any European nation. A U.K. deal was signed agreeing to a “loan” of over £1.5 billion ($1.94 billion approx.) to permit Ukraine to purchase British missiles, which have not yet been manufactured and could not in fact be aimed or fired without U.S. intelligence and guidance systems.

Starmer’s bold statements produced a stern response from Russia, whose chief diplomat reminded the world that any placement of NATO troops in Ukraine would be seen as a declaration of war.

Speaking ahead of yesterday’s EU-led Ukraine summit, Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, “We see no room for compromise,” explaining that sending European troops to Ukraine would mean the “undisguised involvement of NATO countries in a war against the Russian Federation. It’s impossible to allow this.”

Responding to Macron’s televised address, Lavrov added that Macron wished to “fight Russia,” explaining the thinking behind the French president’s outburst:

They said directly “We need to conquer Russia, we need to defeat Russia.”

He [Macron] apparently wants the same thing, but for some reason he says that we need to fight Russia so that it does not defeat France.

Rhetoric and reality

The reality of European and British military capability is simply not reflected in any of these statements. Reports over the last few years have consistently shown that there is in fact no realistic European military power to confront the Russians.

Germany’s leading academic authority on its army has said that Europe’s depleted armed forces would be “washed away” by Russia in weeks, and that it could take at least 15 years before Germany was ready for war.

Speaking at a Berlin defense conference in November 2023, German historian Sönke Neitzel told military chiefs that in the case of a war with Russia, Germany’s soldiers “can only die” in a war they will certainly lose:

We are going to stand by the coffins at the soldiers’ graves and we are going to be asked: “What have you done?” We will have to explain to the mothers and the fathers why the soldiers could not fulfill their jobs. And at the moment we can only die gallantly if there’s a war.

Neitzel warned that men will be sent to certain death by their political leaders:

It’s very clear: if our armed forces are going to fight, they will die without drones, air defenses, without enough supplies. Are we now clear enough on our message [to Germany’s leaders]? They are going to die and it’s your responsibility.

In an updated report published March 7, Bloomberg reports that Europe’s “undersized and fragmented” forces would run out of ammunition within days and cannot manufacture sufficient gunpowder.

“Europe’s Defenses Risk Faltering Within Weeks Without US Support” the report says, noting that, “If attacked, Europe’s ammunition stockpiles could run low within days and rearming will take years.”

A report from the U.K.’s Guardian noted last week that the EU “spends more on Russian oil and gas than financial aid to Ukraine,” saying it had purchased “22 billion euros of fossil fuels” in 2024, against “19 billion in aid” to Kiev.

Real war not realistic

Why are EU and British leaders talking war with no realistic chance of fighting one? U.S. moves to scale down and possibly withdraw from NATO spell the end of the alliance, of course, but the wider implications are obvious for the remaining liberal-globalist governments.

Britain, France, Germany, and the EU itself are led by a political establishment whose only hope of unity is in forging a war coalition in a battle they cannot win. As the “Russianist” Professor Gilbert Doctorow has noted, this spells doom for a liberal coalition which has decided to oppose the United States.

“We have moved on from observations of people like myself from the sidelines saying that the leadership in Europe is not living in the real world but they’re living in a bubble,” Doctorow told Judge Napolitano this week.

“What we have now is the end game – and they have created it for themselves.”

The Ukraine war was never going to be won, and a new war between Russia and the liberals of Europe likewise has no basis in military reality. The moves by these failing states is a desperate bid for unity and relevance in a world which no longer corresponds to their values.

Alone among 27 EU member states in opposing increased arms supplies to Ukraine is Hungary. Its leader, Viktor Orbán, famously defined the values of the liberal order as “LGBT, open borders, and war.”

To protect itself from the widespread rejection of these “values” and the globalist agenda they project, the British and EU liberals have implemented totalitarian restrictions on free speech – and even thought and prayer – and have effectively suspended democracy in refusing to respect the results of elections while dramatically increasing digital surveillance and censorship efforts to maintain control of a narrative which has parted company with reality.

The EU initiative to do so is ridiculously called “The European Democracy Shield.”

 

As Doctorow told Judge Napolitano, it can only be a matter of time before the pro-war parties without an army part company with political power, too. The outbreak of peace is fatal to them, as these leaders have all invested their political capital in the black hole of crime and corruption which is another ugly dimension of reality to the failed proxy war in Ukraine.

Leaders like Von der Leyen, Macron, and Starmer do not fear the lights going out all over Europe. They fear the illumination of the darkness they have used their nations’ wealth to fund in Ukraine, which has been defended by years of outrageous lies. Having fought so long to keep their nations in the dark, the European liberal order is panicked into talk of Armageddon by the fear of the lights coming on at last. It is the end of their world that is nigh. Not ours.

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