Remember the radio interview Donald Trump did with Hugh Hewitt?
Hewitt asked: “I’m looking for the next commander-in-chief, to know who Hassan Nasrallah is, and Zawahiri, and al-Julani, and al-Baghdadi. Do you know the players without a scorecard, yet, Donald Trump?”
“No. You know, I’ll tell you honestly, I think by the time we get to office, they’ll all be changed. They’ll be all gone,” Trump said. I thought at the time – hey – at least he’s honest. A slimy politician would have tried to bull crap his way through. It would not have worked on Hewitt.
So when, yesterday morning, I heard one of the “Fox and Friends” crew ask him what he would do about Russia, Syria and Assad, I didn’t hear what I expected, which was, “I make deals – great deals, and I’ll make a great deal with Putin – or something to that effect.
What he said was both intelligent and the truth, and void of his usual bombast. It appears maybe he did a little homework since the Hewitt interview.
The question was regarded Russia’s bombing in Syria and that Putin was supposed to be bombing ISIS, but it appears they are bombing the rebels – Assad’s enemies – the “moderates” the U.S. is supporting.
He said the U.S. has “no idea” when it comes to the identities of the various rebel groups in Syria. Trump said: “We don’t know who these rebels are. He said one of the generals he spoke to admitted “they don’t even know who they are we’re fighting for.”
Trump’s strategy appears to be to just wait while Putin bombs Syria in hopes that he’ll get “bogged down” like the Soviets did in Afghanistan – thus defeating himself. “Russia got bogged down in Afghanistan. I bet they get bogged down again,” he said.
He added that, if we successfully topple Assad, what you’ll end up with in Syria “will probably be worse than what we have now – and what we have now is very bad.”
Trump admits this strategy is not normal for him – that he wants to be very proactive, but in this situation, he doesn’t want to jump in and help who may turn out to our enemy – worse than Assad and possibly even ISIS.
I happen to agree with The Donald. Have we learned nothing from the conflicts over there? Have we learned nothing from the catastrophe that was the “Arab Spring?” And need I remind us that we were the ones predicting all along that the “Arab Spring” was a radical Islamist setup to create a new Caliphate. That the overthrow of these evil dictators would lead to an even worse situation, which it has. As terrible a thought as it is – the world, and certainly the Middle East would be much better off if dictators like Gadhafi and Hussein were still in power. Egypt may be the only one which worked out – no thanks to Obama, who supported their short-lived Muslim Brotherhood regime.
Obama and his crew of brilliant diplomats all think we are actually supporting the FSA – the Free Syrian Army, when in fact, there may be no FSA. We don’t know who they are. Heck, back in 2013 Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) said intelligence estimates concluded that at least 50 percent of the “resistance,” or FSA, were either al-Qaeda or other terror groups.
But Putin knows what he has in Assad — an ally who will reward Putin for helping to smash those who resist him – good or bad. And the reward Putin desires is gas, oil, and shipping ports. Just look at a map. Any Syrian port leads right into the Mediterranean Sea and a straight shot to the Suez Canal. Location, location, location. Putin may even have designs on folding Syria into his new Soviet Union. Who knows.
But kudos to Trump for handling this foreign policy issue well, compared with most of the field who seem far too eager to get involved.