Corruption and questionable financial deals that landed many Trumpworld in legal hot water so extensive and pervasive that almost no aspect of the presidency, Donald trump may escape unharmed — and American policy towards Syria is no exception.
The Syrian civil war has become a maelstrom of competing factions, each with their own regional sponsors to pursue their own interests in Syria and the middle East in General. These countries compete for influence in places, but also inside Washington.
In the trump era, some of them play more personal meeting with the President — they make business in real estate, what the President does has the ability to directly send money in the presidential purse, through its American business, or both.
For example:
- Earlier this month, the trump sons Eric and Donald Jr. was in the United Arab Emirates for the promotion of the Golf resort in Dubai. UAE backs Syrian democratic forces (SDF), which is the umbrella organization headed by Kurdish separatists in Syria.
- George Nader, who once served as a key influence peddler on behalf of the UAE, is now a cooperating witness working with the investigation of special Prosecutor Robert Mueller.
- Trump also has a large project associated with the property in Turkey. Turkey supports a number of opposition groups in Syria, but its main interest in the war inhibits the SDF and Kurdish separatists to control too much territory.
- Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in hotel trump. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia loudly to support military action against Assad, and the Saudis, in particular, was sometimes the key financial backers of the anti-Assad rebels. Kuwait at least declare their position.
A huge number of financial conflicts of interest is so large that it is unclear in which direction, in fact, personal business interests will push the asset. But it’s certainly clear that he has interests in the region, which is separated from national interests.
Although some degree of military strikes, as a rule, divert attention away from trump’s mounting troubles at home — nothing blows the FBI RAID your longtime personal lawyer and all-around fixer from the first page, just like a few cruise missiles — essentially, questions about his ethics only become more acute when considered in the foreign policy context.
The civil war in Syria is a tangle of regional interests
The Syrian civil war began as a fairly simple conflict between the military regime forces. They have begun to fire on peaceful demonstrators and armed rebels, whose original cores were defectors from the Syrian army.
But during the war turned into a multifaceted conflict, is marked by several foreign interventions. Not only the Russian and Iranian forces on the ground in support of the regime, but the massive influx of troops Hezbollah from neighboring Lebanon came to fight on the side of the regime. They gave that group de facto control of swaths of Syrian territory.
Meanwhile, the descendants of the first armed opposition are still in the field and with the support of the Sunni forces in the region, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and they all have their own Favorites rebel groups. Kurdish groups, who are not fighting for regime change in Damascus, but to ensure its own autonomy control large amounts of territory. They were both favourite partners of America to combat ISIS.
Turkey shares borders not only with Syria, but harbors its own Kurdish minority; therefore, he is strongly opposed to Kurdish national aspirations in Syria and Iraq. It has its own military operations in Syria aimed at verification of the Kurds and the regime in Damascus.
You can categorize all these different groups generally Pro – or anti-Assad. But to do that significantly mitigates the conflict in which groups that, in General, “on one side”, however, can compete for influence, have misinterpreted the agreed incentives, or have large objectives that are not primarily focused on Syria at all.
“Some strategy games are too complex to be easily modeled,” writes economist Tyler Cowen, an extraordinary Hodge-podge of groups and the purpose of fighting in Syria. “And when we see such games in the real world, this is exactly when we should be very concerned.”
It’s a situation that will challenge even the best of the group of decision-makers but instead we have an administration trump.
The President is faced with a multitude of relevant conflicts of interest
Earlier this month, Eric trump and Donald trump Jr. visited the UAE for promotional work related to Golf resort in Dubai.
These days, the role of UAE in Syria, mainly includes support of the Syrian democratic forces, the umbrella organization headed by Kurdish separatists in Syria. We also know that George Nader, who once served as a key influence peddler on behalf of the UAE, is now a cooperating witness working with the investigation of the special adviser to Muller. Nader also has close ties with Russia and the UAE seem to have been associated with the mysterious meeting between the Russians and Erik Prince in the Seychelles.
The SDF itself, of course, is against Assad, but in a more refined sense of the collision coverage with Turkish opposition groups and increasingly with the very Turkey, which has become more directly involved in Syria over the last year.
Trump, of course, is a major project associated with the property in Turkey.
Turkey has also cultivated ongoing ties with trump, ensuring, for example, that the American-Turkish Council held its annual conference in the United States-Turkey at the trump Hotel in Washington last year.
The small Gulf States Bahrain and Kuwait held their national holidays at trump, and America MSLGroup, a public store that does a great job for the Saudi government, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in trump. Saudi Arabia, a leading financier, what is left of the original Syrian rebel groups — and Bahrain both loudly supporting military action against Assad, while Kuwait seems to be more careful.
All this is not to say that the trump decision-making on Syria driven by narrow financial considerations — indeed, it can be argued that this is impossible, since trump took money from many different directions — but it underscores that essentially nothing the administration is doing in the region is completely on the level.
We don’t know who pays trump or someone he listens to
As America heads deeper into a conflict with Assad, we have no official Secretary of state to run American foreign policy. Also there is no Senate-confirmed assistant Secretary for the region. Also we have no Ambassador in Jordan, the Arab States on the southern border of Syria, through which flows supported the opposition, because the king of Jordan got a trump card into the fire last summer the foreign service office Alice wells. There is no Ambassador in Turkey or Saudi Arabia.
On the other hand, actually filling these positions do not have to achieve something because we know that trump has no intention of listening to professional diplomats about anything.
The fact that he is the first son-in-law Jared Kushner, the mysterious, whose portfolio includes extensive diplomatic work in the region. And Kouchner, as a family loyalist, not a professional diplomat, is in a position to know that American diplomats and the public in General, not who actually pays the trump family and how much.
There is a strong impetus in the press want to believe that aberrant behavior to the administration trump somehow does not apply to life-and-death aspects of national security policy. Mike Allen declared in his morning newsletter that “amid the distraction and dysfunction, trump looked and behaved like a traditional commander-in-chief last night.” But superficial appearances are misleading in this respect. Normal commander will not operate the existing business in two countries that support rival factions in the ongoing civil war and simultaneously pivoting U.S. policy toward the war. A normal commander would not have received checks from foreign governments and their lobbyists in Washington.
Most likely, a normal chief will not collect large, top-secret financial flows on a continuous basis streams, making it easy prey for foreign Nations seeking to influence us policy. The reality is that nothing trump can not or ever will be okay — no matter what he looks like — while he deeply enmeshed in the web of corruption. And everything indicates that it will always be.
Sourse: vox.com
