"The Blob Is Lying About Trump’s Sudden Syria Withdrawal"

By artappraiser on Fri, 01/04/2019 - 9:21pm |

A must read, considering Pompeo's talking points abt "false narratives" - "The president's shift in Syria policy has been portrayed as a surprise—but America's foreign-policy machinery was quietly tasked with preparing for it months ago. - by @markperrydc https://t.co/I4XlUZH4wW https://t.co/D96uPhMPe8
— Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) January 5, 2019

URL:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/04/the-blob-is-lying-about-trumps-sudden-syria-withdrawal/

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Turkish army brass at odds over military operation in Syria https://t.co/uLLoEqpteF
— Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) January 6, 2019

Also reposting the following that I put on another Syria thread a short while ago, seems like Perry in his article above, was correct:

Wow. Huge huge huge caveat to Trump’s complete and immediate withdrawal from #Syria. Suddenly Bolton speaks. https://t.co/ZtLkumIrxK
— Kevin Baron (@DefenseBaron) January 6, 2019

And WaPo is still headlining the Bolton story on their home page right now as it was earlier, adding that Bolton mentioned ISIS as well as the Kurds:

Bolton promises no troop withdrawal from Syria until ISIS eradicated

National security adviser John Bolton’s comments are the clearest explanation yet of how officials plan to execute the president’s abrupt announcement that he would pull troops from Syria, surprising allies and prompting the resignation of former defense secretary Jim Mattis.

By Karoun Demirjian

by artappraiser on Sun, 01/06/2019 - 3:40pm

Trump just publicly voiced spin suggesting he's following the admin underlings line, how long that lasts, who knows:

Trump via White House pool, on Syria withdrawal:

"..we won't be finally pulled out until ISIS is gone."

Q: How long?

"It's going quickly."
— Julian Borger (@julianborger) January 6, 2019

by artappraiser on Sun, 01/06/2019 - 5:22pm

dupe deleted

by artappraiser on Sun, 01/06/2019 - 5:24pm

.@LindseyGrahamSC: "The president is slowing down and he is re-evaluating his policies" for Syria. "The reality set in that you gotta plan this out." @FaceTheNation
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) January 6, 2019

by artappraiser on Sun, 01/06/2019 - 3:45pm

Even more confusion:

“Three Defense Department officials said that despite Mr. Bolton’s memo, there had been no planning for any turnover of counterterrorism operations to the Turks.” https://t.co/oGh0m2DIp4
— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) January 6, 2019

by artappraiser on Sun, 01/06/2019 - 3:54pm

This would be considered illegal under international law. The US voted with the rest of the UN Securiry Council in 1981 to pass Res 497, declaring Israeli administration of Golan "null and void and without international legal effect.” https://t.co/MG3cYSs312
— Jonathan Landay (@JonathanLanday) January 6, 2019

by artappraiser on Sun, 01/06/2019 - 5:16pm

More expressed confusion, from an expert on U.S. policy towards Iran:

Iran's position has not changed. I still dont understand if his view about Iran comes from his staff misleading him or whether hes trying to mislead. https://t.co/Rmqst4JFMD
— Ali Ahmadi (@AliAhmadi_Iran) January 6, 2019

by artappraiser on Sun, 01/06/2019 - 6:07pm

Heading to the Middle East today to send a clear message to our friends and partners that the U.S. is committed to the region, committed to #defeatISIS, and committed to counter Iran’s destabilizing activities. pic.twitter.com/TUHv3BeNHh
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 7, 2019

by artappraiser on Tue, 01/08/2019 - 12:25am

Crikey! Well, at least he didn't Tweet it.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan - NYT Op-Ed - Trump Is Right on Syria. Turkey Can Get the Job Done. https://t.co/xmguqKfLbt
— Small Wars Journal (@smallwars) January 8, 2019

by artappraiser on Tue, 01/08/2019 - 1:52am

I read some of the comments on the op-ed and they made all the arguments as to why it was propaganda and why we shouldn't trust Erdogan to get the job done.

by ocean-kat on Tue, 01/08/2019 - 2:23am

thanks for pointing that out as I didn't think to. Here's the new news, he snubs Bolton publicly in Parliament on the Kurds:

Contradictory U.S. policy on Syria boomerangs on Bolton as Turkey's president says "it is not possible for us to swallow" the mixed American message. A Turkish newspaper says the president refused to even meet Bolton @carlottagall https://t.co/w3esBIPQrp
— rickgladstone (@rickgladstone) January 8, 2019

in the Turkish media, a "soft coup against Donald Trump":

Ouch. As Bolton flies home from Turkey with no Erdogan meeting, the lead editorial in the pro-government Daily Sabah: "A soft coup against Donald Trump" - https://t.co/SXNgVlaUmA
— Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) January 8, 2019

more detail:

BREAKING: What Turkey is reacting to: @AmbJohnBolton delivered “non-paper” from admin w 5 core conditions for US w/d; and also said Erdogan NYT op-Ed wrong and offensive, per officials
— Margaret Talev (@margarettalev) January 8, 2019

by artappraiser on Tue, 01/08/2019 - 12:43pm

Bolton just gonna go his own way, going to continue to ignore the presidential babblings, either he will convince the powers that be (whoever those are, nobody knows) to go his way or git fired?

Bolton and the Deepening Iran Obsession

By Daniel Larison @ The American Conservative, Jan. 8

John Bolton has added a new hard-line Iran hawk to the National Security Council. Curt Mills reports on the hiring of Richard Goldberg from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD):

“Regime change has become a loaded political term,” Goldberg has said in congressional testimony, rejecting comparisons of Iran hawks to those who pushed the U.S. into war in Iraq, even though the two groups have heavy overlaps. “We need to look at more of a Cold War-era policy. What was the Reagan administration’s victory policy, rollback policy toward the Soviets? We definitely wanted behavioral change.”

Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the “Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction” Bolton is promoting the fiction that there are Iranian WMDs to be countered. The lie that Iran seeks such weapons has been at the heart of opposition to the JCPOA, and Bolton is happy to keep promoting that lie for as long as he can.

As Mills notes, he was doing just that during his recent visit to Israel when he said this:[....]

by artappraiser on Tue, 01/08/2019 - 4:32pm

I think well said (from guy who is "Head of Output @ BBC Arabic"):

Bolton’s visit to Turkey brought US Turkish relations back to where they were on Dec 14 before Erdogan picked up the phone to call Trump. It was a weird episode & the first ever US action in the Middle East that results in the Secretary of Defence becoming collateral damage
— Mohamed Yehia (@yeh1a) January 8, 2019

by artappraiser on Tue, 01/08/2019 - 6:15pm

US troops are both staying and leaving, in case anyone was confused https://t.co/rfh5AUUH2m
— Josie Ensor (@Josiensor) January 10, 2019

by artappraiser on Thu, 01/10/2019 - 2:11pm

I want to be careful with how I phrase this, but Pompeo's Cairo speech was one of the worst foreign policy speeches I've witnessed from a senior U.S. official. It was cynical, petty, incoherent, small, and, well, silly
— Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) January 10, 2019

Also: the U.S. is not, and hasn't been, "a force for good" in the Middle East. It has been much the opposite—one of the major obstacles, and at times even the primary obstacle, to the region's progress and development
— Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) January 10, 2019

He is Senior Fellow @BrookingsInst; Contributing editor @TheAtlantic; Author #IslamicExceptionalism. Find my books here: https://amzn.to/2RpBpVt I saw his tweets because The Guardian's Julian Borger retweeted thread, who is an old timer now on foreign policy and diplomacy.

Edit to add another:

“That they think that anyone still wants to hear about Barack Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech-get over it. You own the issue now, you own the policy. People want to know what you are going to do, not what you think Barack Obama did wrong.“ -⁦@j_feierstein⁩ https://t.co/0QWmHqC8qz
— Tamara Cofman Wittes (@tcwittes) January 11, 2019

by artappraiser on Fri, 01/11/2019 - 1:27am

Pentagon official tells WSJ they don't take orders from Bolton!

Pentagon moves forward with US withdrawal from Syria.

"We don't take orders from Bolton" says a Pentagon official. https://t.co/07Cepcm9Lz
— Negar (@NegarMortazavi) January 11, 2019

by artappraiser on Fri, 01/11/2019 - 1:32am

VOA News - Experts Fear Terror Group Consolidating Power in Syria (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham [HTS], an al-Qaida-affiliated group) https://t.co/imxLKU64Vl
— Small Wars Journal (@smallwars) January 26, 2019

by artappraiser on Fri, 01/25/2019 - 11:51pm

Syrian Military Police is carrying out raids across Damascus arresting men wanted for military service https://t.co/wTWJFQ3Jb9 The regime recently expanded the age range of those wanted for reserve duty to include those born in 1972 or later (so even 47-yos can be taken)
— Elizabeth Tsurkov (@Elizrael) January 27, 2019

Video showing massive number of Syrian men arrested in the last 2 days in Damascus and taken to military service. pic.twitter.com/6eBePGDQAF
— Elizabeth Tsurkov (@Elizrael) January 28, 2019

by artappraiser on Mon, 01/28/2019 - 1:28am

"The Blob Is Lying About Trump’s Sudden Syria Withdrawal"

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