Thoughts on how Trump "gets out" of Syria

I have the following theory on how Trump will “resolve” the question of Russian backing of Assad in Syria.

First up, I notice this, from King Abdullah of Jordan:

cite

Second, I note the changes that Trump made the Republican platform, weakening the plank on aid to the Ukraine government against Russia.

Third, SecState Tillerson is in Russia right now, talking tough on Syria, but I’m sure there’s horse trading going on behind closed doors.

I bet that Trump proposes that Russia keeps Crimea and Russia drops its backing of Asssad. Apparently this proposal already has the backing of at least part of the Middle East.

Where does the EU come down on this? They’ll weigh their fears over Russian expansionism versus the problems the Syrian civil war is causing, particularly the refugee crisis. They might go for it, with conditions, which I expect Putin to blow through.

There’s also the issue of whether Assad will leave (not willingly), and what government is put in his place.

TL;DR I think Trump will give Crimea to Russia in order to “settle things” in Syria. Curious to know what others think.

Why is this in the Pit? Because Trump.

Trump doesn’t need to “get out” of anything. There was chemical weapon use. United States punished Syria for it. Unless there is repeated use of chemical weapons, that episode is finished (Spicer’s recent blurt-outs notwithstanding).

Just want to say that I’m on record saying exactly this the day he bombed that airfield in Syria.

Also, I don’t think Putin will give up Tartus. But he will hand over Assad’s head on a silver plate if they are assured of keeping Crimea, Tartus and having the sanctions lifted.

I wondered if this had come up. There are a bunch of threads on Syria, so I guess I missed it. Apologies. Still want to know what the group think is.

Sanctions. I failed to consider sanctions. I don’t think Putin’s going to get everything he wants. On the other hand, it would make sense to lift the sanctions that are there to support international comdemnation of Russian action in Crimea and Syria.

**Thoughts on how Trump “gets out” of Syria **

  1. Orders all mapmakers to remove Syria from world maps;

  2. Declares himself the winner, and best president ever.

  3. Profit!

Intriguing. Can we call it Trumplandia? Putinvale?

SSDD

Wait, I know this. We’ll take their oil! Gold! Hotels! Something, we’ll take something.

Mostly they have refugees. Perhaps we could take them.

Oooh, no. Sorry. That violates the prime directive: profit.

Insist that the US has never been involved in Syria and any reports of missile attacks are ‘fake news’.

Then ignore the subject entirely until the next intervention.

Rinse and repeat.

You forgot 2B - stiff the mapmakers out of the payment he promised them.

Think big, baby. Slave labor. King Cotton could rise again!

Man, you’re an idiot.

Not the EU but there’s a big overlap between the EU and NATO. Following last summer’s meeting of the NATO Russian Council the Secretary General’s comments included:

It’s been a pretty consistent position even through this Spring’s NATO summit. Turning that on it’s head would be a big challenge. Poland, especially, is likely to go ape-shit over recognizing the Crimean annexation. It’s still common to think of Poland as relatively weak European power. They aren’t.

Poland, at full mobilization (all their trained and organized reserves called to duty), is the fourth largest military in NATO behind only the US, Turkey, and Greece. They are close to twice the size of a fully mobilized Germany. They are almost as big as the combined forces of a fully mobilized UK and France. They upgraded their old Soviet equipment for greater capability following the end of the Cold War. They’ve been replacing it with even more modern western built equipment such as the German Leopard 2 main battle tank. They have veteran leadership after conducting Brigade level deployments to Iraq and later Afghanistan. They’ve quietly become full partners in their own defense and an important part of the rest of Europe’s defense.

I don’t think there are conditions that could make Poland accept recognizing Crimea happily. I seriously doubt any of the other major European powers are willing to have to carry the extra load required if Poland comes to a separate accommodation with Russia. It’s one thing for the alliance to ignore the concerns of nations like Hungary or Romania. It’s a whole other thing to try and ignore Poland.

Can you see Trump announcing the arrangement without consulting NATO and then having the whole thing blow up? I think it’s a definite possibility.

mmmmm…nope, I don’t think you’ve got it.

I haven’t seen even ONE instance where trump reasoned that he would give up one thing in order to get another thing he wanted. So far, he has followed a process that consists of saying “I’m going to do this, and it will be fabulous, everyone will love it.” Then he says a bunch of stuff that isn’t true, pus out an executive order that either does nothing, or is rejected by the courts, and then he changes the subject.

But mostly because there really isn’t anything to “extract himself” from with this.

One participation trophy coming right up! Sorry I missed you first time around, but when there’s this many threads some are bound to get missed.

“This is where we’re starting at, and NATO is going to come up with their plan, and they’re going to call me and negotiate, we’ll make a deal with some of our plan and some of their plan, I make great deals, it’s going to be tremendous, big fan of Crimea, the Crimeans are going to love it bigly.”

No worries, bud. This must be your busy season.

I’m sure these trophies you’re handing out are hand made in America by Americans. Looks like Trump managed to create at least one American job.

This needs to be said. The Board practice of dragging unwilling participants into a discussion must stop! It is clear that friend Projammer does not want to be coerced into unwilling involvement, yet he is compelled by forces outside of his control. This is unfair, unjust, and must cease!

If Projammer has nothing to say worth the effort of typing, he/she should not be compelled to reveal that fact, yet again! No fair!

This is lame even for threadshitting.