Posted on 05/25/2025 5:49:14 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The president didn’t travel all that way for photo ops. But here’s the greatness that most analysts have missed.
President Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East was groundbreaking on many levels: economic, diplomatic, and strategic. In each of the countries he visited, he was greeted warmly by all the highest-ranking officials. He lined up billions in economic agreements with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
However, Trump didn’t travel all that way for photo ops. Although the economic agreements are important, his boldest move was meeting with the new Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa and the agreement to lift the heavy sanctions that have been in place for decades.
With this deft move, Trump rearranged the chess pieces in the Middle East. Iran is now alienated from all the countries that surround it. Plus both Russia and China can no longer use Syria as a base for intelligence operations.
It seems clear that the president had this mission in mind when he took office. He used his speeches on this trip to lay out his vision that the nations of the Middle East could join with the U.S. to bring both peace and prosperity to the region: “A new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts and tired divisions of the past, and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos; where it exports technology, not terrorism; and where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together — not bombing each other out of existence.”
Those ideas might sound familiar to you. They echo of the words of the Prophet Isaiah: “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore”
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
What a difference from pudding brains.
We’ll know Syria is serious if they stop killing Christians.
“In contrast, they viewed Obama and Biden as weak”. Obama and Biden (and also Hillary Clinton, John McCain, John Kerry, and Mitt Romney) were also corrupt and bought for and everybody there knew about it.
It takes a strongman to lead. Unlike the left the Sheiks and mullahs knows there’s a new sheriff in town. The Main Street showdown will take place with Iran. The Palestinians are no longer the victims the rest give lip service to.
Sheiks-interesting. I thought it was I before E.
If you pronounce it "shake" Abdul, it's good. If you pronounce it 'sheek' Abdul, it is another exception.
President Trump is no "strongman." Rather, he is a strong man (in the sense of "strong leader").
Regards,
They are still infected with Islam. You can’t solve a problem if you can’t admit its a problem.
“Plus both Russia and China can no longer use Syria as a base for intelligence operations.”
Really?
I JUST LOVE PRESIDENT TRUMP
Trump combines warmth and some humor with respect for these leaders.
The respect he shows the leaders is appreciated by the leaders in front of their countrymen
There are not so many death to Israel types out there. The ‘67 war was the beginning of the end for them.
Syria risks splitting into 3 or 4 countries, plus Turkey will take the northwest and Israel will occupy everything southeast of Damascus (and could possibly sack Damascus itself if Syria doesn’t cool down after that). Each side will make alliances and honestly most wil end up allying with Israel ( which means allying with the USA in this specific case because it is US weapons). The Druze already do. The Christians don’t want to fight at all but have to leave or defend themselves and make bedfellow with someone ( guess who). The Alawites don’t like the Jews, but it’s possible the Islamists hate the Alawites even more, leaving them no option either - plus the party in power will want to strip the Alawites of any dreams o taking control of Syria again so they wil be especially brutal. So this “freedom fighter” loses everything he fought for if he lets it fracture. Ironic, what he fought to obtain is no longer obtainable the way he thought. That’s the nature of this kind of strife- what good is Syria if 75% of the resources are gone? It’s a sad reality of geopolitics we have to sometimes deal with scumbags. I did not like Trump meeting with that guy but I can see why he thought it might help. So for now the Islamist is being feted, given a taste of the good life, given some non military aid and economic freedom with the hopes that is pan-Islamist ideology fades as he is faced with the reality of governing a diverse country AND as almost all his support for Pan Islamism is taken off the board. He talks the right talk, but the situation on the ground has to change too. His time is limited if he doesn’t pacify the country. And if he does pacify the country that means making it clear that all the people, the tribes, the religions must be free and equal and safe. And would be a good thing. He may have to fight off splinter factions from his own former supporters. And that may have been the real reason for the meeting. Welcome to the big leagues kid, now you have to start winning games.
Yep.
Turkey will take the northwest and Israel will occupy everything southeast of Damascus (and could possibly sack Damascus itself if Syria doesn’t cool down after that).
I'm not thrilled with either as I don't think either will help him pacify the country. The Kurds hate Turkey. The Islamists hate Israel to the point that suzerainty will produce blowback.
His time is limited if he doesn’t pacify the country. And if he does pacify the country that means making it clear that all the people, the tribes, the religions must be free and equal and safe. And would be a good thing. He may have to fight off splinter factions from his own former supporters.
Effectively, for the most part this resembles what Assad was doing, albeit with Alawite predispositions.
And that may have been the real reason for the meeting. Welcome to the big leagues kid, now you have to start winning games.
Yes, that's how it looks, but I'm not thrilled with the idea that the only alternative to Israel and Turkey keeping a lid on things is that the only alternative is us doing it, a possibility which Trump has just effectively interjected. I have serious doubts the miscreants on the ground will so fear US weaponry they'll cool their jets.
As a comment, it looks like “Biden” allowed Obama to do to Syria what he did to Libya.
I think it’s pretty clear Trump wants out of Syria entirely. He tried to do it as 45 and the DoD lied to him. On the flip side Trump probably also sees the proxy element too. We can exert pressure on Turkey and Israel. So they are both threats to whomever runs the place, in addition to internal threats. We don’t need to be there at all. Everyone else will act in their own interest, which includes making various alliances. It’s their regional problem not ours but the interests of stability are aligned.
Assad did indeed try to keep ethnic and tribal and religious strife to a minimum, but they were scumbags too. And they (alewites) were a minority in charge of all other minorities. Their way of pacification was dropping 55 gallon barrels of fuel on people. Truly horrific. I don’t think you can create a perfect country out of Syria at least not right away - there will be the fanatical factions. We in the west have, for the most part and with large success, have come to accept different people of all backgrounds and beliefs as long as they accept our social compact. Syria has to have a strong enough central government that preaches the same concept, with the ability and willingness to enforce it against anyone who will challenge it from any faction. Pray as you wish, love who you wish, just don’t stop others from doing the same. It’s very simple but also quite foreign and abhorrent to a small but very determined and violent minority.
As an aside, it seems the larger Arab world is coming around to this idea, while Europe seems to be regressing into various forms of tribalism. They are our Cold War/ neocon era military allies but that alliance is fraying because they (Europe) isn’t keeping up with the core values that united us for a century. We have a choice to make at some point as Europe will pursue its own agenda that may be entirely different from ours. And it’s a potential for mess but Trump may have trumped that entirely with the latest deals. The ME countries want to make money from Europe but they know perfectly well that we are the ones who protect that trade. Europe is decaying while we are moving to a new golden age.
Pretty much, yes. Obama screwed up Syria, and our interests, during the Arab spring. He kept declaring red lines and threatening a color revolution without ever actually engaging or following through. Obama policy was really confounding. He let Egypt fall to the mob but propped up the Ayatollahs. Makes no sense and all this projected dysfunction and weakness and sent Assad into the arms of Russia. Thankfully that fell apart under its own weight and Russian miscalculations but still. It was a lack of a clear message and follow through that created a sort of schizophrenic perception of our country. I can speculate on what motivated Obama but it still didn’t look consistent or principled. The CIA’s only real consistency is our best interest (supposedly) but they make too many deals with the devil that are not going to last very long. They don’t seem to care either - their view is simply that something will eventually happen anyway and when it does, we will just make a new deal. Not ideal. But it seems to be how they operate. Sorry for all the rambling there are a lot of parts to all this.
Trump doctrine is much more clear and simple. A lot like Teddy Roosevelt. Just be cool and we’re cool. But if you act out of line remember we’ve got this big stick.
Right!
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