President Donald J. Trump: Making America Great Again?

Every American president tries his very best to leave a legacy before exiting the White House. This legacy could be either positive or negative depending on where you stand. Most former American presidents left legacies of helping to destabilize one country or the other. Examples of such countries are Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and currently Syria. When they are campaigning to be elected as president of the U.S.A., they always spell out their policies especially their foreign policy. This makes the whole world know the kind of administration they will have to deal with after the elections and one of them eventually emerges as the winner.

President Donald Trump is no exception to the above, in fact he made the whole world know that his administration’s foreign policy will be guided by the mantra “I will make America great again”. This he said he will do by not meddling in the affairs of other countries militarily. That is, he will allow countries to solve their own problems and will not help any of the factions. He said he will also make sure more jobs were created in America for American citizens to benefit. Thus, making sure that American companies who have factories in China and other countries will relocate back to America and provide jobs for the American people. These and other numerous measures President Donald Trump promised to undertake during the campaign period so as to make America great again.

But what have we seen since he assumed the reins of power? Is he on the path of making America great again or making more enemies for America? Is he also on the path of creating more tension in the Middle East and also on the Korean Peninsula? He launched a barrage of cruise missiles against the Syrian government for an alleged sarin gas attack in the Idlib province which killed many children. Will that make America great again? He also sent attack navy ships together with an aircraft carrier to be stationed in the Korean Peninsula, just to warn or deter North Korea from undertaking any new missile tests. This was a show of force and might, and he vowed to deal with the North Korean problem once and for all. And he promised to take military action against North Korea should they do anything to threaten South Korea or any of their allies in the region. North Korea responded that they were prepared for war and they will not hesitate to strike back decisively should the U.S. provoke them. Will this make America great again? Or is Trump trying to diffuse the pressure mounting on his administration as investigations are being conducted on his alleged ties with the Russians and they meddling in the U.S. elections of 2016, thus helping him defeat Hillary Clinton?  Has he also drained the swamp as he promised? Or are the neocons and the warmongers feeding him with wrong intelligence contrary to his foreign policy? Will America be great again under President Donald Trump? Is he really on the path of making America great again?

The Syrian Conundrum

Syria was a very peaceful country with a lively population a decade ago. Damascus, the capital city used to be one of the oldest cities in the world. In fact Syria had one of the World Heritage Sites at Palmyra with well preserved historical artifacts. All of a sudden this peaceful and lively country was thrown into a never ending confusion with some citizens calling for the stepping down of the President, Bashir Al-Assad. These protests started six years ago which later turned into a full blown civil war which has been raging on ever since. More than half a million people have lost their lives in this never ending conflict. At first all seemed to be going well for the so called moderate rebels who were being sponsored by their western friends through Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman with military hardware and money. Since Russia saw it as very strategic to support Assad due to her interests, the Syrian government started gaining the upper hand with the help of the Russian military and air support.

The Assad regime had to deal with rebel factions and ISIS on several fronts and this stretched his army thin, so Russian support was so welcoming and this helped the Syrian government to push the so called moderate rebels out of their controlled territory. Russia also joined the fight against ISIS in Syria and used her military base at Latakia in Syria as a launch pad for airstrikes against the terrorist organization. In 2013 the Syrian government was accused of allegedly using chemical weapons on its citizens, but Assad’s regime denied this accusation. Russia and the US then called for a destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons. These two powers had representatives on the ground to supervise and ensure that Syria’s chemical weapons were destroyed.

Fast forward to April, 2017, the Syrian government is suspected to have launched a chemical attack in Khan Shekoun in the Idlib Province killing many children. The Syrian government comes out to deny this accusation and they accept the fact that they launched an airstrike against a rebel warehouse with no knowledge of chemical weapons in it. The western biased media decide to blame the Assad government for the deaths. In the early hours of 7^th April, 2017, the US launches a barrage of cruise missiles, more than 50 missiles against a Syrian airbase near Homs. Before they did that they contacted the Russians to make sure no Russian was caught in the strike. Several questions need to be answered.

Why will Assad gas his own people? Knowing very well that the international community will never forgive him for such an act, why will he do that? Is it true that the sarin gas that was the cause of the deaths of these innocent children was shipped from Libya to the Syrian rebels with the tacit approval of a former US Secretary of State? Why will the UN Security Council allow the US to take a unilateral decision to launch strikes on Syria? Is it not a breach of international law? Why was the US and her allies quick to blame Assad for the gas attack hours after it happened? Why didn’t they allow independent investigators to do their work?

The world must tread cautiously in relation to the Syrian civil war, because the exit of Assad will burn the Middle East. Isis and the various factions in the Syrian conflict will resort to fighting each other once Assad is kicked out and another Iraq and Libya will rear its ugly head in the region. The Syrian people should be allowed to choose their own leaders. There should be no meddling from any other foreign power. Syria needs peace and a political solution should be found as soon as possible to end the suffering of the Syrian people.