Looks like Lindsey Graham is carrying on the John McCain legacy of setting up road blocks for Trump?
December 21, 2018 - Senator Graham calls for hearings on Troops in Syria, Afghanistan
Senator Graham calls for hearings on troops in Syria, Afghanistan | Reuters
WASHINGTON - Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Friday called for immediate U.S. Senate hearings on President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw all American troops from Syria, which prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., December 4, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters he wanted to hear directly from Mattis at any hearing. Mattis announced plans on Thursday to depart in a candid resignation letter to Trump that laid bare the growing divide between them.
A Senate hearing could also cover Trump administration officials saying on Thursday that there were plans to drawdown about 5,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
Graham, who over the past year or so has been a staunch supporter of Trump, (When did that happen?) has broken with him on the Syria decision.
Heading to a meeting of Republican senators, Graham said, “In lunch I’m going to ask for hearings like right now about Syria.” Trump said Islamic State had been defeated there so it was time to withdraw U.S. forces.
Graham made clear that he also was worried about a possible U.S. troop reduction in Afghanistan, where 14,000 troops are deployed in what is America’s longest war at 17 years.
“I dare anybody to say that ISIS-K is defeated in Afghanistan,” Graham said, referring to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province, a branch of Islamic State, active in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The group “is a bigger threat this year than they were last year. It is clear to me that ISIS-K is plotting to hit America,” Graham said.
Graham said cutting U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan would leave “too few to accomplish the mission of holding Afghanistan together and protecting America from another attack and it’s too many to be hostages and sitting ducks” there.
The United States went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, seeking to oust the Taliban militants harboring Saudi-raised militant Osama bin Laden, who led plans to carry out the attacks.
2018-12-20 - Don’t Be Fooled, Trump’s “Withdrawal” From Syria Isn’t What It Seems
Don’t Be Fooled, Trump’s “Withdrawal” From Syria Isn’t What It Seems - Eurasia Future
Trump’s decision to “withdraw” US troops from Syria is being universally praised by all but his “deep state” foes, but things aren’t exactly as they seem and the celebrations might be premature because this deceptive move simply changes the nature of the Hybrid Wars on Syria, Iran, and Pakistan by making them less kinetic but nevertheless equally dangerous.
Trump supposedly “defied” his foes in America’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) by ordering the “withdrawal” of American troops from Syria, which is being celebrated across the world as a pragmatic peacemaking gesture that’s long overdue. The fact of the matter, however, is that
this isn’t the so-called “retreat” that some in the Alt-Media are portraying it as but is actually a cunning move for more cost-effectively advancing the US’ military, political, and ultimately strategic objectives in the Arab Republic and beyond.
On the surface, it appears to some that Trump flinched in the face of Erdogan’s threat to commence an anti-terrorist intervention east of the Euphrates in the US-occupied corner of Syria and basically betrayed America’s Kurdish allies there, but the “withdrawal” should instead be seen as keeping the Kurds in check and preempting a possible Turkish campaign against them there by getting them to curb their ambitions as part of a pragmatic US-brokered deal between them an Ankara. Still, even if Turkey does indeed intervene, then that doesn’t necessarily mean that the YPG-led SDF will be destroyed.
Most observers overlooked the US Special Representative for Syria’s statement earlier this month that his country was deliberating the creation of an Iraqi-style “no-fly zone” following a possible withdrawal of its grounds from there, which the author drew attention to in his piece at the time about how “The US Might Withdraw From Syria If A ‘No-Fly Zone’ Is Imposed In The Northeast”. The argument put forth in that analysis is that it would be much more cost-effective and less risky for the US to control the agriculturally, hydrologically, and energy-rich corner of Northeastern Syria from the air through a “no-fly zone” than through “boots on the ground”.
Under such a scenario, which is veritably plausible following Trump’s
public reassurance that the “withdrawal” doesn’t imply the end of its military mission in Syria, the US and some of its “Coalition of the Willing” allies could maintain control of the region through aerial means and therefore keep Turkish, Syria, and especially Iranian forces at bay if they violate the so-called “deconfliction line” that the Pentagon imposed along the Euphrates over the past two years
This could ensure that the US-backed but Kurdish-controlled SDF doesn’t lose its predominant position in the region even in the event that Turkey launches a small-scale intervention there because it could ultimately be “contained” by the US and its allies’ de-facto “no-fly zone”. Thus, given that the “withdrawal” of American troops probably won’t have any practical on-the-ground consequences, this move should therefore be seen as a mostly political one aimed at achieving several objectives.
Most immediately, the optics of an American military “withdrawal” from Syria are supposed to catalyze the stalled peace process and create the conditions for pronounced international pressure to be brought upon Iran to follow suit, which is in alignment with President Putin’s unofficial peace plan for the country which the author touched upon in his piece last month about how “Russia’s Non-Denial About Brokering Iran’s Withdrawal From Syria Is A Big Deal”.
Furthermore,
“Israel’s” publicly expressed concerns over this development could push it even further under Russian tutelage as Moscow progressively replaces Washington as Tel Aviv’s patron per the model that the author described in his summer analysis about how “
It’s Official, ‘Israel’ Is Now A Joint Russian-American Protectorate”. In hindsight, it shouldn’t be seen as a coincidence that Russian and “Israeli” military officials
recently visited one another in the run-up to Trump’s announcement, suggesting that they were either informed of it in advance or accurately forecast this development and decided to publicly intensify their military relations with each other in response.
Apart from the Syrian-related analytical angle,
Trump is also signaling to the Taliban (whether sincerely or not) that the US is seriously contemplating pulling its troops out of Afghanistan too, which is the group’s main condition for continuing the unofficial peace talks between the two sides. That said, it’s doubtful that the US would surrender its strategic presence in the tri-regional crossroads between Central, South, and West Asia and will probably end up replacing any of its “withdrawn” troops with mercenaries, which might be a “face-saving compromise” between itself and the Taliban but one which might deliberately drive a wedge between the so-called “moderate” and “hardline” factions of the second-mentioned and possibly “provoke” dissatisfied elements to “defect” to Daesh (which could in turn be blamed on Pakistan for escalating the ongoing Hybrid War on that country).
Lastly, Trump wants to show the American public that he’s keeping his campaign pledge to (at least conventionally) draw down the War on Syria following the Republicans’ loss of the House last month and ahead of the 2020 elections, knowing that the Democrats will hold his feet to the fire over that unfulfilled pledge and weaponize it as part of election campaign against him if he doesn’t make visible progress on that front (and possibly also in Afghanistan too per the aforementioned scenario). In view of this, domestic political interests might have also played an influential role behind Trump’s decision and the specific timing thereof.
Altogether, while the US’ “withdrawal” from Syria is certainly a welcoming move that will undoubtedly do a lot to advance the stalled peace process in the war-torn country, it’s nevertheless much more of a cunning strategy aimed at comprehensively advancing a wide range of interests than the supposed “retreat” that some are “victoriously” celebrating it as. The US’ Hybrid Wars against Syria, Iran, and also Pakistan aren’t stopping any time soon, but it’s just that they’re evolving in response to new conditions and taking on less kinetic forms that are still more than capable of creatively shaping events in America’s favor so long as its intended targets don’t understand the nature of the new threats that they’re facing.
2018-12-21 - James Mattis Likely Resigned Over Afghanistan And Not Syria
James Mattis Likely Resigned Over Afghanistan And Not Syria - Eurasia Future
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis speaks during a news conference after a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, October 4, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo
While many US officials blatantly disregarded the security concerns of their fellow NATO member Turkey by orchestrating and promoting a battlefield alliance with the YPG/PKK terror organization in Syria,
outgoing US Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis was not one of them. Mattis always tended to tread a respectful line when it came to attempting to preserve rather than destroy Washington’s long standing friendship with Ankara. In many ways he was unique in this respect, especially when contrasted with other officials appointed by Donald Trump.
While Mattis served in both Afghanistan and in America’s wars on Iraq, it was Afghanistan that Mattis always prioritized as a military red-line for the United States. Furthermore, it was under Mattis that the US began intensifying attacks in Afghanistan. This included not only a US troop surge into Afghanistan during Mattis’s first year at the helm of the Pentagon, but it also included the controversial dropping of the so-called MOAB (the mother of all bombs) on an alleged terrorist target in the country. It still remains unclear how much damage if any that the MOAB did to alleged Daesh positions in Afghanistan. It is more likely than not that instead, the dropping of the MOAB in 2017 was more of a show of force designed to intimidate regional rivals than it was a pragmatic way of attacking Daesh networks.
By contrast, under James Mattis’s tenure as US Defence Secretary, the US shows of force in Syria were generally anticlimactic. Missile strikes on western Syria in the spring of 2017 and another in the spring 2018 were in hindsight designed more for domestic consumption among Trump’s political opponents than they were designed to either inflict damage on the Syrian government or frighten other parties to the conflict in Syria.
Commenting on Mattis’s overall strategy earlier this year, I wrote the following:
“The fact that the conflict in Syria has long passed a meaningful point of no return for its authors, means that one of the few intelligent men in the Donald Trump cabinet, James “Mad Dog” Mattis has no real interest in Syria but is instead focused on two far more important theatres of war for the United States.
Unlike Nikki Haley or John Bolton who operate with a clear ‘Israel first’ policy, Mattis is more of a traditional neo-imperialist who thinks globally rather than regionally. Furthermore, Mattis thinks in terms of great power rivalry, something that is generally anathema to the “Israel firsters”, people who have an unhealthy obsession with dominating the Arab world while neglecting other vital strategic regions.
Because of this, Mattis realises the futility of the Syrian conflict from a strategic perspective as the strategically important lands of Syria are now firmly in the hands of the legitimate government and their allies. He also alluded to something even more important, when he said that the US would consider withdrawing troops from South Korea as part of a de-nuclearization process on the peninsula. If Syria is a waste of time for the US in terms of its grand strategy, Korea has become an expensive burden that is also becoming an unrealistic place from which to provoke China. The Korean peninsula is literally China’s back-door and as a result, even the slightest future provocation against China from the peninsula would result in a crushing response.
Therefore, Mattis has opted for a more traditional containment strategy aimed at China which seeks to use Afghanistan as a means of sowing instability in Pakistan – China’s link from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean via the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, while also using Afghanistan as a place from which to potentially provoke conflict in Russia’s soft Central Asian underbelly, particularly in Tajikistan. Afghanistan is an ideal location to both contain and provoke China and Russia, all from the same location. The fact that the ongoing US war in Afghanistan is keeping countries like Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan away from Afghanistan’s natural resources is just an economic bonus for a war intentionally designed to have no tangible end point”.
This characterization of Mattis remains true and is likely why he took the decision to announce his departure from his position as US Defense Secretary shortly after Donald Trump indicated that he wants to replicate his Syrian troop withdrawal in respect of the US war in Afghanistan.
For Mattis, the great-game style strategy of using Afghanistan as a means of retarding China’s regional economic progress and that of its Pakistani partner, of Russia and of Iran, was of supreme strategic importance – far more so than pretending that the US could still remove Bashar al-Assad from power in Damascus -something that incidentally was a tall order even before Mattis was appointed by Trump, due to the presence of Russian soldiers and assets in western Syria.
Therefore, it is not likely that Trump’s withdrawal from Syria which
stands to benefit Turkey but have no real effect on Russia, Iran or the Damascus government, was the straw that broke the camel’s back in respect of forcing Mattis out. Instead, it was Trump’s announcement that he intends to withdraw
thousands of US troops from Afghanistan that was almost certainly incompatible with Mattis’s personal strategy in Asia.
For years it has been clear that the US had not required a traditional victory in order to achieve its main objectives in Afghanistan. Instead, the US goal has been one of manifold obstructionism. This strategy has including the following goals:
–obstructing the fomenting of peace in Pakistan’s Balochistan province
— obstructing Iran-Pakistan reconciliation
–obstructing the wider development of China’s Belt and Road and specifically obstructing progress in CPEC (the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) which runs through Pakistan’s Balochistan province
–obstructing Afghanistan’s ability (and that of its genuine partners) to cultivate its own mineral wealth
–obstructing a genuine war on drugs in the region that would have otherwise brought stability
–obstructing Russia from becoming a moderating power in the region
And yet, in spite of America spending billions of Dollars and
wasting needless US lives in a war that few in the US even think about and when they do, they hardly understand the point of it – the US has nevertheless failed to consummate most of the aforementioned obstructionist aims with the possible exceptions of prohibiting Afghanistan and other potential partners from cultivating the country’s mineral resources, as well as prohibiting a genuine war on narcotics from taking place.
Thus, while Mattis is what many in the US call “a soldier’s soldier”, one thing he is not is an economist. By contrast, economic expert and fiscal conservative, former US Congressman Dr. Ron Paul stated that the most realistic motivation for
any US withdrawal of troops in foreign theatres of conflict will ultimately be because the US cannot afford its military adventurism.
Published on Dec 20, 2018 (12:19 min.)
While Trump does not share Dr. Paul’s fiscal and monetary conservatism in a doctrinal sense, as a former businessman, Trump has regularly emphasized that he is tired of spending so much money overseas. Because of this, while Mattis almost certainly wanted to stay the obstructionist course in Afghanistan, Trump may well have realized that in addition to being costly, America’s Afghan war has not in fact retarded the progress of CPEC and Belt and Road, it has not done too much to prevent Pakistan and Iran from improving their relations, it has certainly not lessened the influence of China and Russia in the region (if anything it has increased both Russia and China’s influence) and it has not ultimately stopped Pakistan from scoring multiple victories against multiple terrorists threats that were largely unleashed and feed by the war in neighboring Afghanistan. Thus, when Mattis’s troop surge and intensified bombing campaigns were all said and done, there was little that the US had to show for it, even by its own standards.
Therefore, the private “battle” between Trump and Mattis was largely that between a neo-imperial military adventurer-soldier and that of a New York penny-pincher.
The fact that US diplomats have tended to respond positively to the current round of Kabul-Taliban peace talks in the UAE also means that Trump now has the perfect excuse to pull at least some of the plugs on America’s Afghan quagmire and likewise pretend to do so from the position of a victor – just as he did in respect of Syria.
If reports on a US withdrawal from Afghanistan do come to pass, it means that not only was Mattis’s erstwhile troop surge in Afghanistan all for nothing, but it will have meant that Trump’s sense of money saving ended up trumping Mattis’s grand strategy in a war that has always been something of the “Mad Dog’s” pet project.
December 21, 2018 - Germany calls for clarity from US after Mattis Resignation
Germany calls for clarity from U.S. after Mattis resignation | Reuters
FILE PHOTO: German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen has breakfast during her visit to the German armed forces Bundeswehr at Camp Marmal in Masar-i-Scharif, Afghanistan, December 18, 2018. Kay Nietfeld/Pool via Reuters
FRANKFURT -
Germany’s Defense Minister Ursula Von der Leyen on Friday called for clarity from the United States after the abrupt resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
“Because the United States has such a prominent role and responsibility in the global security architecture, it is important for everyone to quickly get clarity about succession and the future course,” the minister said in a statement.
December 21, 2018 - US withdrawal from Syria does not affect German Mandate: Ministry
U.S. withdrawal from Syria does not affect German mandate: ministry | Reuters
BERLIN - The United States’ sudden change of course on Syria has no direct impact on Germany’s mandate in the fight against Islamic State, a German defense ministry spokesman said in a regular government news conference on Friday.
A government spokeswoman said that German would have found it helpful if the United States had consulted with other governments before deciding to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.
December 21, 2018 - Dutch worried by US Plans to pull forces from Syria, Afghanistan
Dutch worried by U.S. plans to pull forces from Syria, Afghanistan | Reuters
THE HAGUE - The Netherlands, joining other U.S. allies, voiced disquiet on Friday at the U.S. decision to withdraw forces from Syria and said Washington’s plan to reduce its military presence in Afghanistan was premature.
Thursday’s announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump surprised the Dutch, who contribute to military missions in Syria and Afghanistan,
Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld told reporters in The Hague.
“It is clear to us that if you have an alliance you should discuss things within the alliance and not do things by tweet,” Bijleveld said.
The Netherlands supports the fight against Islamic State militants with F-16 war planes. The Dutch are set to end their participation in that operation, which falls under U.S. military command, on Dec. 31.
Bijleveld said an end to the U.S. military presence in Syria would have “far-reaching consequences for the region and security”. Islamic State has “not yet been completely defeated and the threat is not gone”, she said, a position at odds with Trump’s assessment.
The Dutch were also surprised by the announcement of Washington’s plans to significantly reduce its forces in Afghanistan, she said.
Bijleveld said it would be premature to scale back forces in Afghanistan, where the Netherlands has 100 troops in a NATO-led mission - known as Resolute Support - supporting Afghan army and police forces.
“We are intensifying efforts in Afghanistan because the security situation is not improving quickly enough,” she said.
She said the Netherlands was attempting to figure out what actual U.S. plans in Afghanistan are, as a major withdrawal was likely to make the mission unfeasible.
You'd think Mattis punched Trump in the nose and just left the WH premises because Trump is such a danger due to the Syria and now some Afghanistan troop pull-outs.
