Just keep believing in Putin's Puppet
It's hard to overstate the significance of the last week, not just for America's role in the Middle East but for its global postwar standing. A few immediate observations:
The US is now what might be called a Shadowplay Superpower. Sure, it'll continue to make all the usual noises about democracy, human rights, standing with allies and so on -- but this is now gaseous nonsense completely divorced from reality, according to friend and foe.
Two of America's biggest enemies, Russia and Iran, simply cannot believe their luck that in a long line of strategic cock-ups and own goals, American elected a dumber-than-#^&#^&#^&#^& sociopath who has now gifted them (not even sold, but gifted) its interests and assets in the region.
Putin was just in Riyadh meeting with Bone Saw and note this article by Martin Chulov, which quotes the latter in conversation with Iraqis prior to the former's arrival.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...door-for-assad
In other words, even the worst partners Trump purports to value -- the Saudi royal family -- think he's a wimp and a hypocrite and wholly unreliable.
A sentiment echoed, too, by the Israelis this week, who rightly see America's withdrawal from Syria as the end of Pax Americana and the beginning of what will undoubtedly be a long and bloody carve-up of the neighborhood by hostile forces.
The region used to have Americans figures who, whatever their manifold flaws, commanded respect. In Iraq, even at the height of the occupation/civil war, it was Petraeus, Crocker, Odierno.
Now it's no one. The power brokers to everyone except perhaps the Walking Dead at the State Department and Pentagon and of course Trump's implacable band of all-is-well apologists are now: Qassem Soleimani, Vladimir Putin, Tayyip Erdogan.
And each has an incredibly compelling argument to make, especially for this part of the world: We stand by our friends and do not falter in #^&#^&#^&#^&ing over our enemies.
Each is now also in charge of ensuring that ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria and (most of) Iraq don't come back or threaten U.S. or European interests. If you've studied Russia, Iran and Turkey's past performance here and you're no worried, up the dosage of whatever meds you're on.
For years, I've listened to well-meaning policymakers in DC tell me that the notion of America's recessional in the ME was exaggerated. People on your TV screens now have been insisting on our enduring influence and credibility against overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
I thought it was foolish and self-serving when Obama was in charge and Nouri al-Maliki was heralded as Our Man in Baghdad, etc. Now, under Trump, anyone saying this is just plain deluded.
And the image that will encapsulate this painful fact will be what you just know is coming: Mazloum Abdi, the now-former commander-in-chief of the SDF, smiling next to Soleimani and Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran
Michael Weiss