[Peace-discuss] Trump: Seek Peace with Russia in Syria - As Advocated by David Ignatius

Fri Jul 7 01:22:03 UTC 2017

ON PAUL: Somebody did a special interview this week <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.politico.com_magazine_story_2017_06_26_rep-2Dadam-2Dkinzinger-2Dthe-2Dfull-2Dtranscript-2D215301&d=DwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=tfHzwZBcTLEveiewRiq0OdhFmfRmlvZjpIBS0AUJ2v0&m=uWd5BEcdHMCAVBtV7NZz0EQuenYKCASgvkl_7DBHS2s&s=iFZvPRVCONiyHynGkXqnlatTFC4JX0WJhUu7W185uxQ&e=>, and he's getting to be well-known, someone who is not 40 years old yet... Rep. Adam Kinzinger from Illinois. He is determined to stir up super-antagonism towards Russia. And he can not stand the fact that there might be a softer aproach, and he doesn't like Trump

We're not Trump champions, but [Kinzinger opposes Trump] for this reason: He's not hawkish enough!

He did point out that Trump's positions [on foreign policy] are actually not that bad. When he sends 59 Tomahawk [missiles] into Syria, and sorts of things like that. [Kinzinger] likes that. 

Of course, there is this issue of gas - whether it was actually gas released in April, and we've had some people looking into this. And this is ongoing, but there may be signs that the monolith against Russia and Assad --symbolized by 97-2 vote [in the Senate] could be starting to crack...

He really doesn't like Putin because 'he's killing his own people.' Well, I don't know exactly what he's referring to. I know Putin is no angel, but when you think of how many people our foreign policy kills, we talk about that so often... This is just such hypocrisy, but it is mainly to promote a hawkish policy, back to 'Assad has to go.'

To me, it is amazing how the liberal Democrats, who are supposed to be anti-war like they were in the 1960s, they are now, it looks like, maybe more hawkish than the Republicans... 

It is amazing, [Hersh] had an article over the weekend, and everyone is talking about it today. It is a blockbuster article, it absolutely damages Trump completely, but it also damages the pro-war narrative. Nobody in the Washington Post or New York Times -- here is a blockbuster from a Pullitzer Prize-winning reporter and he had to go to Germany to get it published. Nobody in the U.S. will touch it. 

The article essentially says based on his intelligence contacts that the U.S. knew --President Trump knew-- this was not a chemical attack in April, and he fired the Tomahawks anyway, and it is a blockbuster. And think about it. Nobody wants to touch it. An article like that!

Isn't strange how Trump is so back-and-forth [on foreign affairs]. I think that is the worst position to be... But Trump is criticized mostly by the Kinzingers and the others in the Senate for being too soft on Russia. But then he comes, and he is too aggressive from our view point. He is dropping bombs willy nilly, and it scares us that he will fdo that, he will be influenced by that. 

And now what we're seeing is, it wasn't ignorance, there was material out there.

So it sort of reminds me of what was available to us that we could find before the Iraq War. It was there by reputable people, but it is lost in politics. It is a shame...

> On Jul 6, 2017, at 7:36 PM, Robert Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org> wrote:
> 
> Here's what's on CNN right now:
> 
> "Adam Kinzinger [R-IL]: 'Russia only responds to brick walls'"
> […]
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jul 6, 2017 at 4:58 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
> The CIA wants to “cooperate with the Russians in Syria” - rather like Germany wanted to “cooperate with the Russians” in Poland in 1939.
> 
> 
>> On Jul 6, 2017, at 4:25 PM, Robert Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>> wrote:
>> 
>> Here's what the CIA agent at the Washington Post had to say for himself. 
>> 
>> […]
>> 
>> David Ignatius: Working with Russia might be the best path to peace in Syria
>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/working-with-russia-might-be-the-best-path-to-peace-in-syria/2017/07/04/c2589c9e-6029-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/working-with-russia-might-be-the-best-path-to-peace-in-syria/2017/07/04/c2589c9e-6029-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html>
>> 
>> By David Ignatius Opinion writer July 4 at 7:26 PM 
>> 
>> TABQA, Syria
>> 
>> When Donald Trump meets <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/06/29/mcmaster-trump-to-meet-with-putin-at-the-g-20-summit/?utm_term=.f118e4694702> Vladimir Putin this Friday in Hamburg, the two presidents should have in the back of their minds the insignia worn by the Syrian Democratic Forces militia, which is the United States’ main ally here. The patch shows a map of Syria bisected <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Flag_of_Syrian_Democratic_Forces.svg/1280px-Flag_of_Syrian_Democratic_Forces.svg.png> by the sharp blue line of the Euphrates River.
>> 
>> The Euphrates marks the informal “deconfliction” line between the Russian-backed Syrian regime west of the river, and the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led SDF to the east. In the past several weeks, the two powers negotiated a useful adjustment of the line — creating a roughly 80-mile arc <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/as-the-islamic-state-ees-syria-one-city-offers-a-preview-of-the-countrys-future/2017/06/30/da4c7b4e-5dc3-11e7-9fc6-c7ef4bc58d13_story.html?utm_term=.6e4be37786f6> that stretches south, from near this battlefront city on Lake Assad, to a town called Karama on the Euphrates.
>> 
>> U.S.-Russian agreement on this buffer zone is a promising sign. It allows, in effect, for the United States and its allies to clear the Islamic State’s capital, Raqqa, while Russia and the Syrian regime take the city of Deir al-Zour, to the southeast. The line keeps the combatants focused on the Islamic State, rather than sparring with each other.
>> 
>> What Trump and Putin should discuss at the Group of 20 summit is whether this recent agreement on the separation line is a model for wider U.S.-Russian cooperation in Syria. This broader effort would seek to defeat the Islamic State; stabilize a battered, fragmented Syria; and, eventually, discuss a political future. But is it practical?
>> 
>> Russian-American cooperation on Syria faces a huge obstacle right now. It would legitimize a Russian regime that invaded Ukraine and meddled in U.S. and European elections, in addition to its intervention in Syria. Putin’s very name is toxic in Congress and the U.S. media these days, and Trump is blasted for even considering compromise.
>> 
>> Against these negatives, there’s only one positive argument: Working with Russia may be the only way to reduce the level of violence in Syria and to create a foundation for a calmer, more decentralized nation that can eventually recover from its tragic war.
>> 
>> Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis are said to favor exploring options with Russia. “We see the potential for it,” a senior State Department official said Tuesday. “So far Russia is working in earnest with us on the effort.”
>> 
>> But there’s a contrary view among some hawkish National Security Council staffers and members of Congress. They argue that working with Russia would empower its allies, Iran and the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and give a green light for their future role in Syria.
>> 
>> An extreme version of this view argues that the United States should mount a military campaign to block Iran and its Shiite militia allies in Iraq and Syria from obtaining a corridor across southeast Syria that would link Iran to Lebanon. This militant stance ignores two practical points: Iran already has such a corridor, but it doesn’t stop the United States or Israel from attacking dangerous arms shipments; and an assault on Shiite militias might draw the United States into a long, costly war that could spread across the Middle East.
>> 
>> It’s worth examining the process that established the Euphrates arc of deconfliction, because it shows how different Russia’s public and private actions have been. A Russian official initially suggested the Euphrates boundary about 18 months ago, according to a U.S. official. But it wasn’t formalized, so the two countries had been operating on an ad hoc basis.
>> 
>> This rough deconfliction system worked at three levels. There was daily phone consultation between colonels, supplemented by occasional contacts at the one-star level between the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad and Russian headquarters near Tartus, Syria. Big issues went to the U.S. commander, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, and his Russian counterpart, Col. Gen. Sergei Surovikin.
>> 
>> A crisis arose last month when several Syrian tanks pushed north of what U.S. commanders believed was the informal line of separation. When this small Syrian force was backed by a Syrian Su-22 fighter jet, the United States shot down <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/06/18/a-u-s-aircraft-has-shot-down-a-syrian-government-jet-over-northern-syria-pentagon-says/?utm_term=.443c0e0ff435> the plane. The Russians announced that they were suspending contacts, and “for a few hours, it looked pretty hairy,” recalls one U.S. official. But the Russians quietly resumed talking, and by late June, the two sides had agreed on the formal arc, with precisely delineated coordinates.
>> 
>> Similar U.S.-Russian cooperation has been calming tensions the past few weeks in southwest Syria. Those talks have been backed by Israel and Jordan, which border the zone. That, too, is a potential model for how de-escalation can work.
>> 
>> Cooperating with the Russians in Syria would be distasteful, given their past actions. But spurning them would keep this volatile country at the flash point and almost certainly make things worse rather than better for all sides.
>> 
>> […]
>> On Thu, Jul 6, 2017 at 3:58 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>> 'Talking to Russia’ is going on all along, from military contacts in the Mideast to the G-20.
>> 
>> The “climate against talking to Russia" is a propaganda construct of the Clinton campaign and its allies in the US political establishment.
>> 
>> John Pilger wrote accurately before the election, “The CIA has demanded Trump is not elected. Pentagon generals have demanded he is not elected. The pro-war New York Times - taking a breather from its relentless low-rent Putin smears - demands that he is not elected. Something is up. These tribunes of 'perpetual war' are terrified that the multi-billion-dollar business of war by which the United States maintains its dominance will be undermined if Trump does a deal with Putin, then with China’s Xi Jinping. Their panic at the possibility of the world’s great power talking peace – however unlikely – would be the blackest farce were the issues not so dire.” 
>> 
>> The US strategy has long been control of Mideast energy flows by establishing biddable governments, by hook or crook, throughout the region. 
>> 
>> Control, not just access, is the goal - and the ultimate target is China. (The Pentagon phrase is “offshore control” - of China’s econmy, since it imports most of its energy resources.)
>> 
>> The secular government of Syria was recalcitrant, so the Obama administration sent jihadists (the US invented jihadism, in Brzezinski’s time) to overthrow it.
>> 
>> That was frustrated by Russian support, so the US is falling back on a plan to Balkanize the region, to limit Damascus’ (and Teheran’s) influence.
>> 
>> Ignatius is a notorious CIA asset, practicing ’triangulation’ with the ‘hawk’s' position’ - to advance US Mideast imperialism effectively.   
>> 
>> —CGE
>>  
>> 
>>> On Jul 6, 2017, at 2:57 PM, Robert Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Let a hundred flowers bloom. 
>>> 
>>> The general climate against talking to Russia is so radioactive that we tried to introduce the topic with a gateway drug. 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Robert Naiman
>>> Policy Director
>>> Just Foreign Policy
>>> www.justforeignpolicy.org <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/>
>>> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
>>> (202) 448-2898 x1 <tel:(202)%20448-2898>
>>> 
>>> To Stop Cholera & Famine, Stop Refueling Saudi Warplanes Bombing Yemen
>>> https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/to-stop-cholera-famine?r_by=1135580 <https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/to-stop-cholera-famine?r_by=1135580>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Jul 6, 2017 at 2:47 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>>> This is just the US plan for the Balkanization of Syria (and the entire Mideast).
>>> 
>>> Russia is there legally; the US isn’t. And Ignatius has long been a propagandist for the CIA.
>>> 
>>> Stop the killing by insisting on the withdrawal of US troops (and weapons) from Syria and all of MENA.
>>> 
>>> —C. G. Estabrook
>>> 
>>> 
>>> > On Jul 6, 2017, at 2:00 PM, Just Foreign Policy <info at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:info at justforeignpolicy.org>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Dear C. G.,
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Urge Trump & Congress to seek a peace deal with Russia in Syria.
>>> >
>>> > Take Action.
>>> >
>>> > There is an apparent split in the foreign policy establishment over diplomacy with Russia to resolve the war in Syria. We want to help the pro-diplomacy faction of the establishment defeat the anti-diplomacy faction of the establishment so we can have less war. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius is a "liberal insider," someone considered "close to the U.S. foreign policy establishment" and he is now advocating for diplomacy with Russia, an “official U.S. adversary”, as the “best path to peace in Syria".
>>> >
>>> > Urge President Trump & Congress to back David Ignatius' call to work with Russia for peace in Syria by signing our petition at MoveOn.
>>> >
>>> > As David Ignatius reported in the Washington Post, the United States and Russia successfully negotiated agreement on a buffer zone and "deconfliction line" in Syria. The agreement allows the United States and its allies to clear the Islamic State’s capital, Raqqa, while Russia and the Syrian government take the city of Deir al-Zour. The agreement on the line keeps the combatants focused on fighting the Islamic State, rather than fighting each other. [1]
>>> >
>>> > Ignatius says the U.S. and Russia should discuss whether this agreement is a model for wider U.S.-Russian cooperation in Syria to defeat the Islamic State, stabilize Syria, and discuss a political future. Working with Russia, Ignatius says, may be the only way to reduce the violence in Syria and create a foundation for a more decentralized nation that can recover from its tragic war. Secretary of State Tillerson and Defense Secretary Mattis favor exploring options with Russia, Ignatius notes. "We see the potential for it," a senior State Department official said. "So far Russia is working in earnest with us on the effort."
>>> >
>>> > Some "hawks" in the National Security Council and Congress don't want to work with Russia, even if that is the only way to reduce the violence in Syria. But the likely alternative to working with Russia in Syria is more violence and more casualties for U.S. troops. A recent academic study attributed Donald Trump's victory in November to communities hit hardest by military casualties and angry about being ignored. [2]
>>> >
>>> > Urge President Trump & Congress to support a wider agreement with Russia on Syria to reduce violence & protect U.S. troops by signing and sharing our petition.
>>> >
>>> > Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just,
>>> >
>>> > Robert Naiman, Avram Reisman, and Sarah Burns
>>> > Just Foreign Policy
>>> >
>>> > If you think our work is important, support us with a $17 donation.
>>> > http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate>
>>> >
>>> > References:
>>> > 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/working-with-russia-might-be-the-best-path-to-peace-in-syria/2017/07/04/c2589c9e-6029-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/working-with-russia-might-be-the-best-path-to-peace-in-syria/2017/07/04/c2589c9e-6029-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html>
>>> > 2. http://reason.com/blog/2017/07/03/did-endless-war-cost-hillary-clinton-the <http://reason.com/blog/2017/07/03/did-endless-war-cost-hillary-clinton-the>
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
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