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The clock isn't right even once a day in this case. yes, Assad is correct that Trump is the best US president for Assad. But not for the reason he gives here. Trump is the best for Assad because Trump just made an abrupt move that allowed the Assad regime tom re-take almost the entire northeast border, which it has been locked out of for 7 years; and it was no accident, he openly said he supported the SDF doing the deal with Assad. He just thanked Assad and Russia for help locating al-Baghdadi, though they both deny having any knowledge of it. He formally cut off whatever funding for the some FSA units that had still remained, even though much of it was largely dormant by late Obama period anyway. He also ended the $200 million program funding civil initiatives in opposition areas in Syria. His government made even clearer than Obama that the only "rebels" who get any US arms were those who don't rebel, ie, agree to only fight ISIS and not Assad. His government gave Assad permission to bomb even these US-backed anti-ISIS rebels, even within a US-protected enclave, when one unit had the gall to *fight back* when attacked by Assadist troops. He dramaticalLy stepped up the bombing of HTS in the early months, killing 57 worshippers in an Idlib mosque (that was around the time that Tulsi Gabbard condemned Trump for not bombing them enough). The US airforce even directly fought alongside Assadist and Russian forces helping them conquer Deir Ezzor from ISIS. So, yes, Trump is the best US president for Assad However, Assad claims he is the best US president because his statement about the US might "keep the oil" shows how transparent he is about US policy. Except it doesn't. Anyone who thinks US policy is to "keep the oil", or that it entered Syria to seize Syria's insignificant amount of destroyed oil wells, has really no idea. Trump made that statement not to be transparent, but because he is a political illiterate. He is good for Assad in that sense because he enables Assad, and a whole lot of leftist and far-right political illiterates, to say "see, it was all a war for oil". Which of course is rubbish; the statement is only Trump being dumb. The entire policy of returning troops, just after they left, using the excuse of "protecting the oil", is a face-saving device for US imperialism, aimed at trying to rescue some of its lost credibility, and keeping some of the links it had made with the SDF, which Trump burnt. US imperialism wants to keep doing what it was doing before October 6, before Trump ripped up 5 years of US work: maintaining an SDF statelet (for the time being, I don't believe long-term), with a number of aims, mostly to keep fighting ISIS, as a buffer to Iran, and to keep a foot in the political process which is otherwise dominated by Russia, Turkey and Iran via the Astana process.. So they are maintaining one, a much smaller one than before. Trump wanted right out. So they said the word "oil" to bullshit him, coz they remembered Trump had this thing about how the US "should have kept Iraq's oil". So a literate guy, Defense Secretary Esper, explains clearly that "We want to make sure that SDF does have access to the resources in order to guard the [IS] prisons, in order to arm their own troops, in order to assist us with the 'defeat ISIS' mission." A logical statement of ruling class interest. Far from the US "keeping the oil", the US is just continuing to protect SDF control of the oil, control the SDF has had since the US helped them seize the oil from ISIS. By protecting the SDF the last 5 years, the US was thereby already protecting its control of the oil. Nothing new at all, except that previously the US was protecting the SDF more extensively. But then Trump makes the completely illiterate statement that the US will be "keeping the oil", an entirely different thing, and one with no relation to reality, or US ruling class intentions. He didn't say that because he is so transparent about US intentions, he said it because he says a lot of dumb things. On Sun, Nov 3, 2019 at 1:39 AM Fred Murphy via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > Even a stopped clock is right twice a day 😜 > > On Sat, Nov 2, 2019 at 8:16 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism < > marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > > > https://www.juancole.com/2019/11/syrias-criminal-president.html > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
