PHOTO: Donald Trump with President Obama on Thursday


President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed that he intends to end any US support for the Syrian opposition and rebels challenging the Assad regime.

Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on Friday:

My attitude was you’re fighting Syria, Syria is fighting ISIS [the Islamic State], and you have to get rid of ISIS. Russia is now totally aligned with Syria, and now you have Iran, which is becoming powerful because of us, is aligned with Syria….Now we’re backing rebels against Syria, and we have no idea who these people are.

While Trump has expressed hostility toward Iran, one of President Assad’s essential allies, he has been positive about developing a friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the other key backer of the Syrian regime.

The President-elect said on Friday that if the US maintains any resistance to Assad, “we end up fighting Russia, fighting Syria”.

Well before he ran for President, Trump reduced the Syrian opposition and rebels to “Al Qa’eda”:

A key figure in Trump’s transition team, James Jay Carafano, wrote in January:

Publicly demanding [Assad] step down is pointless, because as long as Moscow and Tehran support him, Assad isn’t going anywhere.

Further, dumping Assad isn’t crucial to protecting vital US interests in the region. Breaking ISIS’s control over territory in Iraq is crucial.

Echoing Obama — Only Louder?

Trump’s line is a starker expression of a policy line already being pursued by President Barack Obama in his last months in office. This week, Administration officials confirmed the shift from Assad to “terrorists”, begun with talks with Russia in 2013 and with aerial intervention against the Islamic State in 2014.

See Syria Analysis: Obama Declares Fight is With “Terrorists” Rather Than Assad

The officials said that the US would now target not only Islamic State but also leaders of the jihadists of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly Jabhat al-Nusra. JFS/Nusra, which revoked allegiance to Al Qa’eda in July in the name of “unity” in the battle against Assad, fight alongside rebels on some fronts.

Lisa Monaco, Obama’s White House homeland security and counter­terrorism adviser, said:

[We have] prioritized our fight against al-Qaeda in Syria, including through targeting their leaders and operatives, some of whom are legacy al-Qaeda members.

We have made clear to all parties in Syria that we will not allow al-Qaeda to grow its capacity to attack the U.S., our allies, and our interests. We will continue to take action to deny these terrorists any safe haven in Syria.