Tillerson: The reign of the Assad family is coming to an end

NY POST ^ | April 11, 2017 | Mark Moore

[COUNTrecount]

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued a stern warning to Russia on Tuesday: Either stand with the US and other “like-minded” nations against Syria or side with President Bashar al-Assad and his allies Iran and the militant group Hezbollah. SEE ALSO Russia knew Syria’s chemical-weapon attack was coming: US Russia knew Syria’s chemical-weapon attack was coming: US

​​”We want to relieve the suffering of the Syrian people. Russia can be a part of that future and play an important role,” Tillerson ​told top diplomats during a meeting in Italy. “Or Russia can maintain its alliance with this group, which we believe is not going to serve Russia’s interests longer-term.”​​

​His comments came hours before he was scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow and days after the US launched a cruise missile strike against a Syrian air base after Assad attacked his citizens with chemical weapons, killing 87 people.​

Tillerson, who met with “like-minded” countries on the sidelines of the G-7 meetings of industrialized nations, said Russia failed to live up to its agreement to rid Syria of chemical weapons either through incompetence or negligence, but the distinction “doesn’t much matter to the dead.”

“We cannot let this happen again,” he said.

[TheStickman]

“Found this comment on another site earlier today.

The thing with Trump is you ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have to wait a while to make any kind of accurate judgment about what he just said or did. If you react immediately, you’re going to have egg on your face. Count on it! There are several reasons for this. One, of course, is the lying, grossly inaccurate media. The other is Trump’s amazing chess playing abilities, his unwillingness to tell anyone what he’s up to, and his unpredictable nature (I prefer to call it “creativity”).

So far, the man has kept every campaign promise; he has his goals and strategies to MAGA firmly in mind (he IS a businessman, after all); and he seems to be moving forward methodically (and yet creatively as needed).

So you’re left with a decision–will you trust Trump and wait for the motive behind his actions to be revealed or will you react and write him off prematurely (based on what you THINK you know–not what the real truth is)?”

Best post of the thread!

[BeadCounter]

Map of Syria here:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446504/syria-gas-attack-us-response-military-russia-isis-obama

[chuckee]

Mr Tillerson just answer one question. “After Assad, what?”

I honestly do not think you have an answer.I think the answer to “After Assad, what?” is the same answer we got to “After Mubarek, what?” i.e. an extremist Western hating government.
Please no more Arab Springs.

[BeadCounter]

Did not that Shia Cleric Sadr bedevil the US and Coalition efforts in Iraq during that invasion?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/powerful-iraqi-shiite-cleric-muqtada-164511535.html?.tsrc=jtc_news_index

Sadar has called for Assad to step down, in my view, the outcome the administration is seeking is not war but for Assad to step down, he is not viable anymore. Then, someone else, Alawite, steps in. Something like this was in the plans 2 years ago at the negotiations table.

Assad stays in power, more refugees flee to the west, there will not be peace with him in power; that appears to be the case. It seems even said that the civil war in a sense has been happening since 1983.

http://theresurgent.com/whats-americas-next-move-in-syria/

What I think they are looking at too, is a Pan Arabic and Turkish force would eventually go in, Syria will be partitioned, the Kurds should get some land of their own.

Trump is not Obama, all that with the Arab springs, saying Mubarak should step down was poppycock, Egypt is not Syria.

[A_perfect_lady]

They talk about him like he’s a king, but he’s not. He was elected, twice. Now of course, we don’t know much about the nature of these elections, and whether they were like the “elections” of Saddam Hussein or not. But in the long run... unless they take out ISIS too, we’re just making things worse.

[BeadCounter]

If Assad and Russia were really fighting ISIS, that would make sense.

This is what I think Trump discovered. Trump was under the impression during the campaign that he could form an alliance with Putin and possibly Assad to fight ISIS.

Once elected, Trump discovered what a lot of others have been saying, that Russia is there mainly to maintain their warm water port and keep a friendly regime in power. They are not fighting ISIS too much.

Is it our concern? Maybe not.

[aquila48]

And who is replacing him?

Seems like we’re getting a lot of “read my lips” moments.

Read my lips, no regime change.

Read my lips, no stupid expensive wars.

Read my lips, we’ll repeal and replace ObamaCare.

[Let's Roll]

I sincerely hope you are right. Just tired of seeing us underwriting regime change and ending up with worse.

[The Toll]

Did he mention anything about the House of Saud?

You know, our REDACTED pals that helped the 9/11 hijackers and send their sons to fight for ISIS?

Anything going to happen to THAT family?

[BeadCounter]

911 needs to be totally investigated still, I would not forget most of the hijackers were in Iran in the previous 18 months, Assad’s buddies. Iran convicted in a US court: http://www.iran911case.com/

[silverleaf]

As I recall the Jordanians looked the other way on what happened on their border during DESERT STORM ...they were not allies of the Coalition. Oh political expediency,I know...I mean what if Saddam won

That place between Syria/Iraq and Jordan is no man's land. Looks like Tatooine. Got sand people too.

I don't know how much "help" Bashir al Assad (the son, not the father) ever gave sunni islamists operating in eastern Syria but in 2007 (elected) he was being hailed by Nancy Pelosi as a "reformer" and she defied the Bush admin sanctions on Syria to take a congressional delegation over there to meet with him and shop in the souk.

Meanwhile in 2007 Senator John and Terayza Kerry also visited Syria for some souk shopping and a nice sit down dinner with Bashir and his British wife Asma.

[KOZ.]

Is that the official Russian propaganda story this time?

[SisterK]

the UN to inspect? good luck with that

[silverleaf]

The Syrian officers who are not Assad loyalists already deserted. There is no good replacement for Assad... or we would know a name, wouldn’t we?

The Assads are part of Syrian nationalism. Now the good news should be that the son is not the father. He has a western education, has lived and worked as an optometrist in England, married a British-raised Syrian wife,

Assad’s last reelection had multiple candidates on the ballot for the first time in Assad ruling history. A small start. But a start. Or could have been.

Of course his country being torn apart by a Western calculated and engineered arab spring “civil war” - joined by tens of thousands of non Syrian islamist fighters -made it impossible for Syria to hold true nationwide election in “rebel held” areas (where our ally ISIS was crucifying Christians for example) .

It is interesting that with the large numbers of Syrian expats abroad (the very people the West needs to go back in a rebuild Syria) there were a number of countries that permitted them to vote at Syrian Embassies

But 10 countries (complaining about the inability OF ALL Syrians to vote) did NOT permit millions of Syrian expats to cast ballots abroad in 2014 at their embassies... Guess who?
US UK Germany France Qatar (free elections anyone) Saudi Arabia (that bastion of free elections) Turkey (another real free election state) et al

THE ONES WHO DID NOT WANT THE RESULTS

[silverleaf]

Did the Russians take that picture? Inquiring minds want to know...
Anything the Russians say MUST be propaganda. To read the truth you have to read the NYT eh

[Freemeorkillme]

Did folks actually read the whole article?

“It is clear to all of us that the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end,” he said. “But the question of how that ends and the transition itself could be very important in our view to the durability, the stability inside of a unified Syria.”

“That’s why we are not presupposing how that occurs,” Tillerson added.”

Now how does a rational person read this & think Syria will = Iraq or Libya? I don’t understand you folks who repeat the sad defeatism of the past when thus far President Trump hasn’t acted like W or Obama thus far in his foreign policy.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I was getting impatient waiting for someone to point this out.

FReeRegards,
FMOKM

[13foxtrot]

Good. And if ISIS/Taliban stands up in his place, they can be bombed as well.

No nation building. Let the UN figure that out on its own.

[InterceptPoint]

What is your take on the use of chemical weapons?

Assad?
ISIS.
Other?

[rrrod]

True Assad was a bit more controllable and any replacement willbe just as bad or worse. It’s called islam

[KOZ.]

Anything that comes from a Russian is propaganda.
That includes you, and the other Russians on FR.
From ‘Russia didn’t shootdown that airliner’ to ‘Russia isn’t invading Ukraine’ to ‘Russia isn’t in Syria, and knows nothing about whats going on there’

You guys are full of shit to the core.