When U.S. Officials Ignore The
President The Outcome Is Chaos
By Moon Of Alabama
October 23, 2019 "Information
Clearing House" -
Since Donald Trump became
president many of his subordinates have tried to
subvert his policies. Instead of implementing
Trump's idea and preferences they have tried to
implement their own. Some Have done so because they
believed that it is the "right thing to do" while
others have ignored Trump's wishes to play their own
game.
A recent example can be found in a Washington
Post Ukrainegate
story:
Trump’s conversations with Putin, Hungarian
Prime Minister Viktor Orban and others
reinforced his perception of Ukraine as a
hopelessly corrupt country — one that Trump now
also appears to believe sought to undermine him
in the 2016 U.S. election, the officials said.
...
The efforts to poison Trump’s views toward
Zelensky were anticipated by national security
officials at the White House, officials said.
But the voices of Putin and Orban took on added
significance this year because of the departure
or declining influence of those who had sought
to blunt the influence of Putin and other
authoritarian leaders over Trump.
...
American policy has for years been
“built around containing malign Russian
influence” in Eastern Europe, a U.S.
official said. Trump’s apparent susceptibility
to the arguments he hears from Putin and Orban
is “an example of the president himself under
malign influence — being steered by it.”
The president does not like how the 'American
policy' on Russia was built. He rightly believes
that he was elected to change it. He had stated his
opinion on Russia during his campaign and won the
election. It is not 'malign influence' that makes
him try to have good relations with Russia. It is
his own conviction and legitimized the voters.
Trump's policies look chaotic. But one big reason
for that is that some of his staff, like the 'U.S.
official' above, are trying to subvert them. They
have tried and still try to cage him in on nearly
every issue. When Trump then wields his Twitter
sword and cuts through the subversion by publicly
restating his original policies the look from the
outside is indeed chaotic. But it is the president
who sets the policies. The drones around him who
serve "at his pleasure" are there to implement them.
Instead they have tried (and try) to make their
own ones:
White House and State Department officials had
sought to block an Orban visit since the start
of Trump’s presidency, concerned that it would
legitimize a leader often ostracized in Europe.
They also worried about Orban’s influence on the
U.S. president.
“Basically, everyone agreed — no Orban
meeting,” said a former White House official
involved in internal discussions. “We were
against it because [we] knew there was a good
chance that Trump and Orban would bond and get
along.”
The effort to keep distance between Trump and
Orban began to fray earlier this year with the
departures of senior officials and the emergence
of new voices around the president. Among the
most important was Mulvaney, who became acting
chief of staff in January and was seen as
sympathetic to Orban’s hard-right views and
skepticism of European institutions.
One "senior official" who tried to sabotage the
Orban visit was
Fionna Hill who until recently served as the
Russia analyst at the National Security Council.
One wonders if Mrs. Hill ever read her job
description. The people in the NSC do net get hired
to implement their own policy preferences. The task
of the National Security Council is to "advise and
assist" the president and to "coordinate" his
policies within the administration. That's it.
The same rules apply to the Pentagon and other
agencies.
Aaron Stein points out that those aides who
disregarding the declared policy of the president
are responsible for the current chaotic retreat
from Syria:
Trump has been clear about his intentions in
Syria. As he
told the world in April 2018, after years of
fighting foreign wars, in his view it was time
for the United States to withdraw from Syria,
passing responsibility for the mission to hold
territory taken from the Islamic State to
regional states. I was listening, and
wrote in War on the Rocks that the
longer the president’s own staff continued to
treat the world’s most powerful man like an
infant, the more likely it became that he would
simply order a hasty withdrawal. This
chaotic U.S. exit from Syria was obviously
coming, for anyone paying attention to the
opinion of the man who matters most in the
United States: the president.
...
For over a year, it was obvious Trump wanted to
leave Syria and, as I wrote in April 2018, Trump
“has made his preferences for U.S. policy in the
Middle East clear” and it was time “for his
national security staff to listen to him and to
devise a sequential drawdown policy that fits
with the spirit of the president’s demands, but
takes deliberate and uncomfortable steps to
protect U.S. interests.” This did not happen.
Rather than plan and begin to implement a
coordinated withdrawal, the president’s
appointed envoy for Syria and the Department of
Defense worked to ensure Washington could stay,
and ignored the reality that
Trump would eventually order an American
withdrawal. Such delusions have not served the
United States and its friends well.
The lack of planning for the option the commander
in chief had already decided on led to the current
mess. The Pentagon practically sabotaged trump's
announced policies by continuing to build up bases
in Syria and by falsely telling the Kurds that the
U.S. would stay. It should instead have planned and
prepared for the announced retreat from the country.
Are You Tired Of
The Lies And
Non-Stop Propaganda?
|
One can clearly see that this current
withdrawal was not prepared for, neither
politically nor militarily, in any
orderly way. Yesterday the Pentagon said
it would pull the troops out of Syria
but station them nearby in west Iraq.
But no one had asked the Iraqi
government what it though of that idea.
The inevitable outcome is that Iraq now
rejects it:
U.S. forces that crossed into Iraq as part of a
pull-out from Syria do not have permission to
stay and can only be there in transit, the Iraqi
military said on Tuesday.
...
The Iraqi military statement contradicted the
Pentagon’s announcement that all of the nearly
1,000 troops withdrawing from northern Syria are
expected to move to western Iraq to continue the
campaign against Islamic State militants and “to
help defend Iraq”.
“All U.S. forces that withdrew from Syria
received approval to enter the Kurdistan Region
so that they may be transported outside Iraq.
There is no permission granted for these forces
to stay inside Iraq,” the Iraqi military said.
There was also the idea that some 200 soldiers
would be left behind in Syria to deny the Syrian
government access to its own oil fields in east
Syria. Not only would this be obviously illegal but
nobody seems to have given a thought on how the
logistics for such remote unit could be sustained.
The oil fields are geographically large and the
company strength unit would have to be dispersed
into tiny outposts within a hostile country and
resupplied over unsecured roads. To defend them from
surprise attacks the U.S. would need to put combat
air patrols above them for every hour of each day.
One hopes that the Pentagon and State Department
recognize that the high political and financial
costs of such a deployment is not justified for
making a minor political point that will not change
the inevitable outcome of the war.
Trump ordered that all U.S. troops leave Syria.
An illegal occupation of Syria's oil fields would
keep the U.S. in Syria but in an clearly
indefensible position. Whoever came up with or
supported that idea needs to be fired.
Here is a sign that the Pentagon has finally
recognized that its utter lack of planning for the
implementation of Trump's decision to leave Syria
resulted in a bad outcome. It is now
trying to avoid to be (again) be caught with its
pants down with regards to Afghanistan:
The Pentagon recently began drawing up plans for
an abrupt withdrawal of all U.S. troops from
Afghanistan in case President Donald Trump
surprises military leaders by ordering an
immediate drawdown as he did in Syria, three
current and former defense officials said.
...
Ending wars like the one in Afghanistan was one
of Trump's chief campaign promises in 2016, and
administration officials have privately
expressed concern that as the 2020 election
approaches, he'll be more likely to follow
through with threats of troop withdrawal, as he
did last week in Syria.
Trump has made clear to his advisers that he
wants to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan
by the 2020 election, NBC News reported in
August.
Trump made his decision in August but the
Pentagon only now reacts to it. That is too slow.
Trump should have been and should be more
rigorous with his staff. Those who sabotage his
policies need to be fired early and often. It would
make his polices look much less chaotic than they
currently seem to be.
This article was originally published by "Moon
Of Alabama "- -
Do you agree or disagree? Post
your comment here
When Trump Ignored Bad Advice He Enabled Progress In
Syria
By
Moon Of Alabama
October 23, 2019 "Information
Clearing House" - When
bureaucrats and officials, also known as the Borg,
contradict the foreign policy of the president they
inevitably create chaos. We yesterday explained
how that happens:
Since Donald Trump became president many of his
subordinates have tried to subvert his policies.
Instead of implementing Trump's idea and
preferences they have tried to implement their
own. Some have done so because they believed
that it is the "right thing to do" while others
have ignored Trump's wishes to play their own
game.
Trump was smart enough to circumvent the Borg
with regards to northeast Syria. This led to the
removal of U.S. troops and the
Turkish-Russian agreement which is an excellent
outcome for all sides.
bigger
Commentator ben and others
critizised yesterday's post:
b, I've been a participant at this site for
14yrs, and I don't believe I've ever seen your
take on any subject more "off base", than your
take on DJT.
This "man" has never been anything else but a
grifter and giant con. Virtually everything he
has done, he's done to enrich himself and his
family. That is, besides deconstruct the U$
govt. to enrich his class of people, (the
malignantly rich) by dialing back regulations
that protect everyday Americans from the greed
of the mega-corporations.
He's a sycophant for the corporate monsters
who now own the U$A. Anything and everything
he's done, isn't because he is such an
egalitarian, it's for his personal enrichment,
and the monsters he works for.
When they're done with him, they'll throw him
under the bus, just like all the rest of us...
I agree with ben's characterization of
Trump. I dislike most of his policies. But that does
not change the fact that Donald Trump is the elected
president of the United States and that he is
thereby entitled to direct its foreign policies as
he sees fit.
Ben's and my opinion about Trump do not
invalidate the point I made. Trump policies,
especially in international relations, are getting
sabotaged or co-opted by the Borg, the
unelected establishment in the various departments
and think tanks. This is a dangerous phenomenon
that, more or less, hinders every elected president,
especially those who want to make peace. It should
be resisted.
The people in leading positions of the executive
work "at the pleasure of the president". Their task
is to execute his policies. When they refrain from
doing so or implement their own preferences they
create a mess.
Consider two additional examples, both published
yesterday, which describe how James Jeffrey, the
Special Representative for Syria Engagement,
tried to sabotage Trump's decision to leave
Syria and, while doing that, misled the Kurds:
A State Department official told a senior Syrian
Kurdish leader during a meeting in Washington
that the United States would not fully
withdraw its forces from northeast
Syria and advised her administration not to
engage with Bashar al-Assad’s government or with
Russia.
According to two sources familiar with the
Monday, October 22 meeting, a senior member of
Washington’s diplomatic team is said to have
become angry and told Ilham Ahmed, President of
the Executive Committee of the Syrian Democratic
Council, that the U.S. will not allow
the SDC to arrange a deal with the Assad regime
or Russia for protection against the Turkey-led
attack.
...
SDC officials told The Defense Post that
American officials in the past have promised
they would not withdraw U.S. forces until a
political settlement was in place to secure
their future in the Syrian political system.
Trump had long announced that the U.S. military
will leave Syria. He had made no promises to the
Kurds. The State Department official did not do his
job but contradicted Trump's policies.
Another report on an earlier State Department
meeting with the Kurds
paints a similar picture:
The National Interest has learned from
multiple sources about tense meetings between
SDC diplomats and State Department officials who
oversee the Trump administration’s policy on
Syria. The State Department repeatedly pushed
for the SDC to work with Turkish-backed Islamist
rebels while berating Syrian Kurdish officials
and refusing to listen to their concerns,
according to multiple sources.
One source with firsthand knowledge of the
screaming session told the National Interest
that Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joel
Rayburn, who is a special envoy for Syria,
yelled at SDC officials and broke a pencil in a
translator’s face. Two sources with secondhand
knowledge confirmed this version of events.
“[Rayburn] loves the Syrian Islamist groups,”
one of the three sources said. “He thinks they
can counter Iran. He is dreaming.”
“He is pushing [the SDC] to meet with
jihadists,” the source added.
To tell the anarcho-marxist YPG/PKK Kurds to
unite with Erdogan's Jihadis is an absolutely crazy
idea. Neither the Kurds nor Erdogan would ever agree
to a partnership. These were impossible policies.
They made no sense at all.
Jeffrey and his shop clearly worked against
Trump's orders and against U.S. interests. Jeffrey
clearly favors Turkey where he once worked as U.S.
ambassador and, above all, Israel:
In addition to the uptick in tense verbal
exchanges, the three different sources described
to the National Interest how State
Department officials attempted to condemn the
brutal murder of Kurdish-Syrian politician
Hevrin Khalaf only to have their efforts
waylayed by Ambassador James Jeffrey, who
oversees anti-ISIS efforts. Jeffrey blocked the
statement, they said.
...
Now, even as U.S. troops are stepping aside to
allow Turkey to attack U.S.-backed Syrian
Kurdish forces, Jeffrey’s team is
floating plans to peel off Arab components of
the Syrian Democratic Forces to build a
counter-Iran force far from the Turkish
border.
It is Jeffrey who is pressing for a continued
U.S. occupation of Syria's oilfields. These are not
Trump's policies, but contradictions to them.
Aymenn Al-Tamimi makes
a similar point:
When [Trump in December 2018] told his advisers
that he wanted to withdraw U.S. forces from
Syria, he meant it. The message should have been
clear: devise an orderly withdrawal plan.
But that is not what happened. Instead,
efforts and attention were geared towards U.S.
forces remaining indefinitely in Syria.
One can criticize Trump for not selecting
advisors and envoys who follow his directions. But
Trump is a New Yorker businessman and not a
politician with decades of experience in Washington.
He does not know who he can trust. He has to proceed
by trial and error until he finds people who are
willing to go work with him against those permanent
powers that usually drive U.S. foreign policy.
In a congress hearing yesterday James Jeffrey
admitted (vid) that Trump did not consult him
before his phone call with Erdogan.
By going off-scrip in that phone call and by
greenlighting the Turkish invasion Trump
achieved - despite the resistance within his own
administration - a
win-win-win-win situation in Syria:
Erdogan could show that he was fighting against
the PKK terrorists and prevented their attempts
to become a proto-state. Trump could hold his
campaign promise of removing U.S. troops from
useless foreign interventions. Syria regained
its northeast and the important economic
resources of that area. Russia gained global
prestige and additional influence in the Middle
East.
We will have to wait for Trump's (and Putin's)
memoir to learn how much of this has been
coordinated behind the scenes.
I for one count this as a major foreign policy
achievement for Trump and I am happy with
this outcome.
bigger
This article was originally published by "Moon
Of Alabama "- -
Do you agree or disagree? Post
your comment here
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