Why America's Sunni-Arab allies have endorsed Bashar Assad - Washington Examiner

In the aftermath of President Trump's planned withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Syria, America's Sunni-Arab allies have endorsed Syrian President Bashar Assad's continued rule over his butchered nation.

It's a tough about-face for Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. After all, Assad's slaughter of his own population has targeted Syrian Sunnis with rampant brutality. Assad's forces and their Iranian, Lebanese, and Russian allies have killed at least 300,000 Syrian civilians since 2011, the vast majority of these victims being Sunnis. But Assad is also a close ally of the Sunni kingdoms' most dedicated adversary, Iran. These factors should make Assad a mortal enemy of the Sunni kingdoms.

Still, the reopening of the UAE's embassy in Damascus this week was to be expected. Led by special representative, Jim Jeffrey, the U.S. had been pressuring the Sunni kingdoms to avoid diplomatic outreach to Assad. The U.S. contended that this reluctance would leverage greater concessions from Assad and his Russian sponsor toward a Syrian political transition. And the kingdoms had listened until now. But now, in the U.S. withdrawal from Syria, the kingdoms sense America's abandoned interest in pressuring Assad. In turn, the kingdoms sense they must pick one of two choices: either pressuring Assad alone or accepting his dominion over Syria in return for some meager scraps of concessions.

That choice takes us to the problem with Trump's central Syrian contention. Namely, that allies can and should sort out their own problems alone. In assuming that U.S. allies can act outside of American leadership, Trump misjudges the complex alliance arrayed against them — in this case, the hydra of Assad, Russia, and Iran. America's allies' worse-case scenario is that they lose all influence with Assad and Russia and thus find themselves facing an unleashed Iran alone.

That's a gambit they cannot entertain. And so we're seeing what we're seeing: deals with the devil that damage their own interests in the hope that worse damage can be avoided.

There's one standout winner here: Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader has usurped America's role in Syria to assert himself as the one reliable mediator of Middle Eastern interests. Expect the Sunni kingdoms to reward Putin with new trade deals and new obstructions to other U.S. interests.

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