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Daily News Analysis

Trump’s dangerous idea of ‘safe zones’ in Syria

Crescent International

Sunday January 29, 2017

On what authority does Donald Trump say that he wants to establish ‘safe zones’ in Syria? Is he politically naïve or has he never heard of the concept of state sovereignty?

Given that he has surrounded himself with gunslingers from the wild, wild West who believe that there is only one solution to every problem: the gun, this should come as no surprise. Trump seems to be resorting to this policy wholesale.

He has not consulted Syria, the country where he wants to establish the so-called safe zones. He has not even consulted Russia, the country that helped bring about radical changes in Syria’s military landscape by driving the terrorists out of Aleppo.

American presidents have a habit of assuming that they can bully the rest of the world at will. It was this hubris and notion of American ‘exceptionalism’ that landed the Washington warlords into the mess they found themselves in Afghanistan and Iraq. That was under George W. Bush, a certified moron. Trump is following in his footsteps. He has notched up stupidity several degrees higher.

Those that had harbored the illusion that Trump the president would act differently from Trump the candidate and his outlandish pronouncements have got a rude shock. Trump is pursuing his militaristic agenda aggressively by announcing several policies within the first week of his presidency to make clear that he means what he said. He is a dangerous demagogue and is likely to push the world to the brink of World War III that his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton many rightly accused of.

As soon as the policy of barring citizens of seven Muslim countries entry into the US went into effect on Friday January 27, refugee families already on flights arriving at JFK airport, New York were detained and incarcerated. Lawyers have lodged cases against the government. A federal judge in New York on January 28 issued a temporary ban on the Trump regime deporting these refugees to their country of origin.

“The FBI is now investigating more people than ever before having to do with terror, and it’s from the group of people that came in,” Trump said in an interview with ABC, adding: “Our country has a lot of problems… they’re deep problems, they’re serious problems. We don’t need more.”

Asked if he was concerned that these measures could cause more anger among Muslims, he said: “There’s plenty of anger right now. How can you have more? The world is as angry as it gets.”

Explaining why he thought there was so much anger in the world, Trump said: “All of this has happened. We went into Iraq. We shouldn’t have gone into Iraq. We shouldn’t have gotten out the way we got out.” Confirming that US policy is based on theft, he said we should have “kept the oil” in Iraq before we left.

Of the countries whose citizens have been barred from entry into the US, so far only the Islamic Republic has called the visa ban an “open affront” against the people of Iran and the Muslim world. The Foreign Ministry issued a statement on January 28 making a clear distinction between the American people and government but emphasized Iran would respond in kind to support its nationals’ rights until the offensive US restrictions are lifted.

It is revealing that the visa ban has not been applied to Saudi citizens that the US alleged 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the 911 attacks had come from. This makes a mockery of Trump’s claims to want to fight terrorism. “This is a gift to the terrorists,” said the Iranian foreign ministry statement and would act as a powerful recruiting tool for the terrorists at a time when they have been defeated in Aleppo and are on the run.

END


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