With Trump’s comments about withdrawing US military presence from Syria still blowing about on the winds of the media, Trump has been looking both for a way to save face and yet still achieve his government’s interests in Syria.
Hence the idea of an ‘Arab Coalition’, wherein the US can reduce its military footprint while still maintaining enough boots on the ground in the region to continue fighting ‘animal Assad’ and funding, arming, and training Syria’s ‘moderates’, as well as containing ‘Iranian infrastructure’ and ‘influence’ in Syria.
Trump said in a press conference with the French President Emmanuel Macron that “Very rich countries are in the Middle East. They have to make major contributions. They have not been doing it as they should. A major topic that we discussed a little while ago: They have to step up tremendously — not a little bit, but tremendously — their financial effort.”
“We have asked our partners to take greater responsibility for securing their home region, including contributing larger amounts of money,” he said.
Trump has asked the Saud King, Salman bin Abdulaziz, to contribute $4 billion on promoting Washington’s interests in Syria, which are closely aligned with those of the Saudis.
The Saudi monarchy has been supportive of Syria’s anti-Assad militants and is very much afraid of the possibility of a US withdrawal from Syria, as this would benefit Assad’s fight against extremists, which hold to the same Takfiri ideology as the Saudis.
The Saudi FM Adel al-Jubeir said at a news conference with the UN Secretary General in Riyadh that “we are in discussions with the US and have been since the beginning of the Syrian crisis about sending forces into Syria.”
Additionally, the Saudis are pressing their neighbor, Qatar, to ‘pay the price of US military forces in Syria’, and threatens that if they don’t, and the US withdraws its military support of the Doha regime, that it would fall ‘within less than a week’. The Saudi Press Agency reports:
Riyadh, Sha’ban 8, 1439, Apr 24, 2018, SPA — Based on the US President Donald Trump statement, during a joint press conference held with his visiting French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, Minister of Foreign Affairs Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir announced that Qatar should pay the voucher of the price of US military forces’ presence in Syria, and to send its military forces there, before the US President lifts American protection of the State of Qatar, embodied in the presence of US military base, on its soils.
The Foreign Minister reasserted US President utterance that if the US is to withdraw its protection, represented in the military base located in Qatar, then that regime will fall, within less than a week.
If the US is to continue to prop up these oil rich, humanitarian, popularly supported, Middle Eastern regimes, then these governments need to ‘pick up the tab’ and invest more heavily into activities in Syria, including funding American participation and deploying their own troops to Syria as a complement to the American presence. Maybe even by throwing more arms and money at the anti-government radical militants on the ground in Syria.
It’s just not fair that America has got to be the one to throw the bulk of the military effort and money into this. And it’s definitely not fair that such efforts, to date, have been blocked by the Russians, who are meddling in American backed regime change efforts in Syria; after all, don’t they know just how expensive these efforts are?
Radical militants don’t saw off heads, dodge bullets, and invade cities for free – they demand compensation, and when it suits your interests too, you need to furnish some guns and bullets (too bad Hillary ain’t in office, never saw a shortage under her Sec. State tenure), and some strategic training. It’s time America’s partners started acting like partners and put some skin in the game.
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