On May 20, 2016, the National Rifle Association endorsed Donald Trump for president. When he went on stage to speak at the NRA convention, Trump took the opportunity to bash Hillary Clinton over the Second Amendment.</s>President Donald Trump, left, shakes hands with national security adviser John Bolton in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, April 9, 2018, at the start of a meeting

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration are seeking to assemble an Arab force to replace the U.S. military in Syria. According to U.S. officials, the plan would use the Arab force to help stabilize the northeastern part of the country after the defeat of the Islamic State.

According to the report, John Bolton, Trump’s new national security adviser, called Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s acting intelligence chief, in attempt to persuade Egypt to join the force.

Emerging details of the plan come days after U.S.-led airstrikes hit several targets in Syria in response to a deadly chemical attack in the country. Trump had vowed in early April that the U.S. military mission in Syria was coming to a “rapid end” - a statement which appears to be at odds with Trump’s recent military escalation in the country.

In early April a press release from the White House said, “We expect our allies in the region and beyond to work toward peace and ensure that ISIS never re-emerges.” The press release came after Trump met with his national security team to discuss the fate of some $200 million in U.S. stabilization assistance for Syria that the White House put on hold after Trump said he wanted to leave Syria “very soon.” The State Department was to have spent the money on building up the country’s infrastructure, including power, water and roads.

Trump in recent weeks has asked Saudi Arabia to contribute $4 billion for reconstruction in Syria, according to a U.S. official, as part of the president’s effort to get other countries to pay for stabilizing the country so the U.S. isn’t on the hook.

"Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the U.A.E. have all been approached with respect to financial support and more broadly to contribute,” an administration official said.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the plan for an Arab force to take over for the U.S. in Syria is popular with Erik Prince, the founder of para-military company Blackwater and who has helped the U.A.E. and Somalia set up private security forces.

Keep updated: Sign up to our newsletter Email * Please enter a valid email address Sign up Please wait… Thank you for signing up. We've got more newsletters we think you'll find interesting. Click here Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later. Try again Thank you, The email address you have provided is already registered. Close

Mr. Prince reportedly said Monday that he was contacted by Arab officials about the plan to build a force in Syria but that he was waiting to see what Mr. Trump would do.

This isn't the first mention of an "Arab force" replacing U.S. troops abroad that has been associated with the Trump White House. In March it was revealed, top GOP fundraiser Elliot Broidy once pitched Trump a plan to build a thousands-strong Muslim army — to be advised by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal — that would help the U.A.E. battle the Taliban and the Islamic State in Afghanistan.

The plan was revealed in a series of leaked emails that Broidy is now claiming in court were hacked by the government of Qatar.

The Associated Press contributed to this report</s>US President Donald Trump has again turned his back on the Trans-Pacific Partnership after just days ago raising the prospect he might consider rejoining the massive free trade agreement with Australia, Japan and nine other allied nations.

Mr Trump, at the end of a two-day visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, told reporters he was now actively pursuing a bilateral deal with Japan.

"The US is committed to free, fair and reciprocal - very important word - trade and we are committed to pursuing a bilateral trading relationship that benefits both of our great countries," Mr Trump told Wednesday's press conference.

Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, Brunei, Peru, Vietnam, Chile, Malaysia and Mexico moved ahead on the TPP without the US and in March had a formal signing ceremony for the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), also known as TPP11.

Mr Trump also told reporters on Wednesday he was looking forward to meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "in coming weeks" in the hope of ridding the rogue nation of its nuclear weapons.

"Hopefully that meeting will be a great success," Mr Trump said.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he did not fire James Comey “because of the phony Russia investigation,” contradicting his 2017 statement that he ousted the FBI director last year over the probe.

Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017, as the law enforcement agency investigated alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between Moscow and Trump’s campaign. The firing prompted the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to lead the inquiry and look at possible obstruction of justice.

Trump, who has denied collusion with Moscow, on Wednesday posted a tweet referring to “Slippery James Comey” and said he “was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation.” Trump did not elaborate.

American intelligence agencies have said Russia interfered in the 2016 election through a campaign of propaganda and hacking in a scheme to sow U.S. discord and help get Trump elected. Russia has denied interfering in the election.

Two days after dismissing Comey, Trump had explained why he did it in a televised interview with NBC News.

“In fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story,” he said. “It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.”

The Republican president has escalated his attacks on Comey, calling him a liar and a “slimeball,” as the former FBI director embarks on a media tour to promote his book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership.”

Comey’s book chronicles his brief service under Trump, who he described as “morally unfit” to be president, while likening his leadership style to that of a mafia boss.

Comey, a longtime Republican who said he did not vote in 2016, told ABC News on Wednesday that he no longer considered himself a member of the party. He said Republicans have “lost their way” in adopting Trump and becoming “transactional” instead of maintaining conservative values.</s>The US administration has asked Arab countries including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to contribute billions of dollars and a large number of troops to help reestablish stability in the war-torn country, and in particular in northern regions. Expressing his growing concern surrounding the cost and duration of the military intervention in Syria, President Trump said: “We have asked our partners to take greater responsibility for securing their home region, including contributing larger amounts of money.” A US administration official confirmed this statement, saying: “Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the U.A.E. have all been approached with respect to financial support and more broadly to contribute.” Trump’s new National Security Adviser, John Bolton, also reportedly contacted Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel to determine whether the North African nation would contribute to the effort.

Certain US officials have been quick to highlight the large obstacles that the US faces in establishing an Arab coalition force in Syria. Michael O’Hanlon, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, warned of external intervention, saying: “A new force has to be strong enough to face down Assad or Iran if either seeks to reclaim territory, perhaps with Russia’s help.” And Charles Lister, a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, cast doubt over the project, saying: “There is just no precedent or established basis for this shaping into a successful strategy.” He also noted that Arab countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia would be reluctant to enter into new military action, as they are currently involved militarily in Yemen.

This would be exacerbated by the uncertain role that the US would play in the project, with questions remaining surrounding whether the US would continue to provide training, support and air cover for troops. US military officials however signalled in January that they were hoping to end their military campaign in Syria in a matter of months, but maintain a certain number of troops in the region to ensure the ongoing stability of key Islamic State locations such as Raqqa. Mr Trump also said in early April that he desired a speedy withdrawal of the 2,000 US troops currently positioned in Syria. This has caused rising fears among other military officials and international politicians that a rapid US withdrawal would create a power vacuum for ISIS to regain ground, or for nations such as Iran and Russia to gain further control.</s>Watching Donald Trump's presidency lunge and wobble from scandal to crisis, a Bill Clinton déjà vu sets in. We've been here before. The independent prosecutors. Corruption probes that turn up adultery. The lies and the pardons. The cover-ups and the payoffs.

Friday's missile strikes in Syria encapsulate the Trump-Clinton parallel universe. HBO host Bill Maher called it "Operation Desert Stormy," suggesting the military operation was meant to distract from the FBI raid of Michael Cohen's office, home and hotel room. Cohen is alleged to have paid for the silence of Stormy Daniels, the former pornographic performer who says she had a steamy evening with Trump back in 2006.

It's reminiscent of the chatter about Clinton's airstrikes against an aspirin factory in Sudan and some al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan back in 1998. It was the same day his former intern Monica Lewinsky returned to testify before a grand jury. Even the weapon used was the same: the cruise missile.

There's also the self-pitying paranoia. As first lady, Hillary Clinton famously described her husband's pursuers as a "vast right-wing conspiracy," arguing the political opponents set out to destroy him from the beginning. Trump rants on Twitter about the "deep state" trying to do the same thing.

Feminist leaders, who would never have excused Clinton's harassment and predations in other contexts, defended him in the middle of the Lewinsky scandal. Today it's evangelicals who debase themselves and sacrifice their principles to excuse away the same moral failings they decried in Clinton.

Make no mistake: Clinton and Trump are not equivalent. Clinton was a wonk who mastered the details of policy. Trump often makes policy on the fly, surprising even his Cabinet. Just see the president's tweets about punishing Syria for the chemical weapons attack before his military had finished drawing up options for a response. Clinton had some strained relationships with his Cabinet, particularly in his first term. But he trusted his top officials as they pursued a coherent policy agenda, unlike during Trump's term so far.

And while both presidents had fraught relationships with the FBI, Clinton restrained his resentment while Trump's spirals out of control. Clinton was dogged by his second FBI director, Louis Freeh, who investigated everything from his sex life to his campaign's financing. But Clinton never fired him, as Trump did with his first FBI director, James Comey. Clinton never publicly called for him to be jailed either, as Trump has done this week with Comey.

What the two men do share are character flaws that rise to the surface and curdle their presidencies. Trump is not Clinton, but a grotesque echo. This manifests in two ways: how they lie and how they are corrupted.

Let's start with lying. Clinton lied like a lawyer. He parsed. Under oath, he answered the accusation that he lied about his affair with Lewinsky by saying it depended on the meaning of the word "is." This kind of dissembling is nauseating, but it's also familiar. Omissions, elisions and faulty memory now count as conventional deception in Washington.

Trump lies like a late-night infomercial. He spews hyperbole and nonsense. He promises to build a wall and he promises that Mexico will pay for it. He compels his supporters and staff to repeat his lies, like instructing his first White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, to insist his inauguration had the largest crowds in history. He assures us that his campaign had no contacts with Russia, even though he was seeking to build a hotel in Moscow when he was running for office.

This brings us to how Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are corrupted. For Trump, there is a real prospect that the sitting president is making public policy to advance his private interests. He declined to divest from his real-estate empire upon taking the office. This sort of concern appears to be the direction of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. He is now probing the influence of the United Arab Emirates on Trump's inner circle, though the inquiry was initiated to focus on Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And while there is still the possibility of collusion between the Trump circle and the Russian state, so far the Trump administration's relatively tough policy record challenges the theory that Moscow got something in return for its electoral assistance.

The U.S. certainly must brace for the nightmare that Trump is monetizing his presidency. In at least one case, in fact, he is under scrutiny for accepting a cash donation to his charitable foundation from the same Ukrainian oligarch who has given millions of dollars to the Clintons' since 2006.

Clinton didn't cash in while in the White House, but his fundraising after leaving office has tarnished American politics nevertheless. In the case of Clinton, fundraising as an ex-president smelled particularly bad because his wife was a U.S. senator and then secretary of state. She was also running for president in this period, both in 2008 and 2016.

To bring this full circle, The New York Times reported last week that Mueller is now investigating a 2015 contribution of $150,000 from that oligarch, Victor Pinchuk, to Trump's charitable foundation in exchange for Trump appearing by video at a conference in Kiev. Pinchuk has also made contributions in excess of $13 million to the Clinton Foundation. He attended a dinner for the foundation's donors with Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state.

Trump's supporters have seized on this, implying that the obvious hypocrisy somehow excuses Trump. But that misses the point.

Twenty years ago, resurgent House Republicans impeached Clinton for lying under oath. And Democrats defended a president with the same sort of moral failings they insist make Trump unfit for office.

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.</s>The Trump administration’s plan for Syria appears to be based on an awful lot of wishful thinking:

The Trump administration is seeking to assemble an Arab force to replace the U.S. military contingent in Syria and help stabilize the northeastern part of the country after the defeat of Islamic State, U.S. officials said. John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s new national security adviser, recently called Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s acting intelligence chief, to see if Cairo would contribute to the effort, officials said. The initiative comes as the administration has asked Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to contribute billions of dollars to help restore northern Syria. It wants Arab nations to send troops as well, officials said.

The U.S. should remove its forces from Syria as quickly as possible, but it is fanciful to think that regional clients are going to put up the soldiers and funding to replace them. It is fitting that Bolton’s idea is little more than a revised version of something Rubio was proposing several years ago. Egypt’s military has enough of its own security problems at home, and it would be ill-suited to a foreign mission like this. For that matter, the current Egyptian government has expressed some support for the Syrian regime in the recent past, so it would be bizarre for them to occupy territory in order to deny Damascus control over it.

The Saudis and Emiratis remain bogged down in Yemen, and the Saudis in particular can’t afford another prolonged military mission abroad. I assume that this proposal would be a non-starter in both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Given how poorly the coalition has performed in Yemen, they would probably not be very effective in securing territory. It would be surprising if they were willing to offer more than a token amount of money to the effort. Qatar might very well provide some funding to win favor with Trump, but given the current rift between them and the other three states plus Bahrain I don’t see how they could work together effectively. The bigger problem is that all of these governments are responsible to one degree or another for contributing to Syria’s instability by arming and funding Islamist and jihadist groups. Putting them in charge of stabilization efforts in Syria is like putting the proverbial fox in charge of the chicken coop.

The Trump administration is going to great lengths to avoid the obvious solution, which is that the Syrian government should be the one to control Syrian territory. The refusal to accept this shows the degree to which Trump’s Syria policy is still as inflexible and ideological as any pursued by his predecessors. Trump should give up on trying to conjure up a new occupation force from unwilling governments and simply bring U.S. forces home as soon as possible.</s>“It’s an attack on our country, in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for.”

That was President Donald Trump’s reaction to the FBI raid of the residence and office of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen. Later, on Twitter, Trump declared, “Attorney–client privilege is dead!”

The President is right. The Sixth Amendment guarantees that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall… have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense,” but who will want to be a defense lawyer now that counsels can apparently be prosecuted for protecting their client’s legal interests, for example, by settling legal claims with potential litigants? The Fifth Amendment guarantees that no person shall be denied of liberty with “due process” and the right not to incriminate oneself, yet by denying Trump the right to keep private legal counsel, he is being denied due process and privileged communications could now be used against him.

Cohen settled such a matter with Stephanie Clifford a.k.a. porn star Stormy Daniels for $130,000 in Oct. 2016 before the election, which Clifford now says was to cover up an affair she had with Trump. Clifford had reportedly signed a non-disclosure agreement as a part of the settlement and she accepted the money.

Now, supposedly, federal prosecutors are looking into the payment as some sort of in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign. But to prove it, federal prosecutors would have to show that the payment was “in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate’s campaign,” per the Federal Election Commission’s definition.

In a statement to the New York Times in February, Cohen had said, “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.” President Trump has since denied he was aware of the payment. But even if he was, candidates for public office do not cease to have legal rights to settle private claims unrelated to the campaign. Could the payment have been to protect the Trump campaign? Sure.

But it could have been to protect his marriage. His family. His professional reputation. There was no guarantee Trump would win the election. Disclosure of an extramarital affair could be damaging in a number of ways, and surely as Trump’s personal attorney, Cohen had the power to settle such a claim on Trump’s behalf before the election, after the election and in between. That’d be like saying Trump today could not settle a civil matter out of court in private because he has already announced his intent to run for re-election in 2020 because that would be an in-kind contribution. It’s preposterous.

Every American has a constitutional right to settle such legal disputes without courts getting involved. This was a civil matter.

A similar criminal complaint was brought against former Sen. John Edwards (D-Mass.) in 2011, and he was supposedly using actual campaign money to pay to cover up an affair, but nothing came of it. Edwards was found not guilty in 2012 of illegally obtaining donations. All other charges against Edwards were dropped after the jury came back dead-locked.

Cohen has been Trump’s attorney for 12 years. By seizing everything at Cohen’s home and office, that will surely include communications with Trump going back all those years. The matter was reportedly referred by Special Counsel Robert Mueller to the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York.

It had nothing to do with Mueller’s “Russia” investigation — which seems to be about everything but Russia anyway — but if it turns up something that suits the Special Counsel’s investigation, surely it will be used by Mueller. It gives Mueller’s all the benefits of raiding Cohen without actually having to do it himself, and none of the risk.

In other words, if Mueller had something on Cohen to do with Russia collusion in the 2016 election, surely he would have gotten his own warrant to go after him. Instead, it was outsourced to another U.S. Attorney. Meaning, there was no collusion. Nothing to justify going at Cohen, so another pretext had to be developed for violating the President’s constitutional right to legal counsel. And even then, they may not have found what they were looking for, as now federal prosecutors are subpoenaing Trump Organization for documents related to the Clifford payment.

Which is not any surprise. The ends justify the means to these federal prosecutors and will do whatever it takes to take down Trump — which is what this is all really about.

The President explained, “I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now — and actually, much more than that. You could say it was right after I won the nomination, it started.”

Again, the President is right. Long before the election, the FBI initiated its investigation in the summer of 2016, when the Hillary Clinton campaign, DNC-paid for Christopher Steele dossier by Fusion GPS appeared alleging that Trump was a Russian agent.

That was the document Comey produced to then-President Elect Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2017. By then, Trump and his campaign were under active investigation. Comey was setting the stage for a conflict between the Justice Department and President Trump.

That’s when the Justice Department crossed the Rubicon. It is hard not to wonder if former FBI Director James Comey was attempting to get fired all along?

Trump would later suggest that he thought Comey was attempting to leverage him with the dossier’s allegations and what turns out really was an ongoing investigation into Trump on the Russia question.

By Jan. 10, the story had leaked to CNN and soon the dossier was published by Buzzfeed.

Once Buzzfeed published the dossier the risk of exposure was ratcheted up — particularly the provenance of the dossier being paid for by the DNC and then pursued by the Obama Justice Department.

Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen, it turns out, had never been to Prague as the dossier had alleged. And if he wasn’t in Prague, then he couldn’t have been there colluding with Russian agents as was alleged. The dossier was a fraud. And it had led to a national security investigation into the Trump campaign, the opposition party, in an election year.

Suddenly, the investigation was a race against time. Either Trump would be removed from office, or their hands in a bogus investigation would be revealed. They had to go all the way, if for no other reason, then to legitimize the original investigation.

By that time, incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had already been recorded having the conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak on Dec. 22, 2016 about sanctions by the lame duck Obama administration against Moscow. The FBI would ultimately question Flynn about the conversation on Jan. 24, 2017. That followed first the fact the conversation had occurred being leaked to the Washington Post and then the contents to contradict a denial by the incoming administration that sanctions had been discussed.

By Feb. 14, 2017, the New York Times was reporting that the Justice Department was actively investigating Trump and campaign officials for supposed contacts with Russian intelligence officials. When then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus asked then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to come forward and say the story was fake, after telling Priebus it was false, that was the first time the White House was accused of “obstructing” justice. The episode might prove that an obstruction case was what they had in mind to be built all along. They just needed Trump to interfere with the investigation in some more substantive way.

In short, the Justice Department’s gambit might have been to carry over the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign into the new administration, deny to the White House there was an investigation into the President but in the meantime leak the fact that there was an investigation. It could have been bait, daring the President to intervene.

The end result, with Comey being fired, was then taken as the evidence that Trump had obstructed the investigation.

During the early months of 2017, Trump would ask Comey if he was under investigation, and Comey denied he was. When Comey was finally fired, something the President absolutely had the power to do, under recommendation by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Trump explained part of his reasoning included “I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.” Then, Rosenstein appointed the Special Counsel.

This was always an investigation in search of a crime in search of evidence. In that order.

It sure looks like the President was set up. And now, a year later, Mueller has not brought forward any case of President Trump colluding with Russia on anything. One-time campaign manager Paul Manafort was brought up on charges to do with his tenure advising former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in the 2000s. Flynn pled guilty to lying investigators. One-time campaign advisor George Papadopoulos pled guilty to lying to investigators. So far, no collusion.

Instead, we’ve got Mueller putting the U.S. Attorney in New York onto the porn star case and ransacking Trump’s attorney’s office. Perhaps he’s preparing to get fired after finding nothing on the President, too, and so needs another U.S. Attorney to pursue the case. It never ends.

And in the meantime, it could be putting U.S. national security at risk.

Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning called the raid in a statement a “trivial distraction in dangerous times,” noting that “the President is dealing with talks to denuclearize North Korea, the Syrian chemical weapons attack, trade issues with China and potential Russian encroachments into Ukraine. The distraction that Mueller’s headline-seeking antics create over trivial matters are no longer in U.S. national security interests. We need President Trump fully focused on the real problems facing our nation. It’s time for Jeff Sessions to swat the gnat that is Mueller and put the Special Counsel investigation to rest. Our nation’s security demands it.”

So, while the President is now dealing with real threats to national security, the Justice Department has been imagining for the past two years that Trump was a Russian agent. And when that proved not to be true, they’re resorting to the allegations of a porn star who is being accused by Trump’s lawyer Cohen of violating her non-disclosure agreement she took payment to enter into as a legal settlement.

It is hard to imagine how any other President except Trump could keep governing robustly while this absolute undermining of the office is continuing.

This is Constitution-breaking stuff. The Justice Department is utterly out of control. This is why the Framers thought there should only be one president at a time.

In Federalist No. 70, Alexander Hamilton wrote of the unitary executive in the Constitution as “essential to the steady administration of the laws” and to “the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy.” It was deemed necessary preventing factions within an executive branch vying for power and executing laws against each other, which was the plague of the ancient Roman Republic with its dual consul system.

In short, by crossing this legal Rubicon, Mueller and company have put national security in danger, the Bill of Rights in jeopardy and the office of the Presidency itself at risk. It takes on the appearance of attempting to overturn the will of the American people who voted to elect Trump in 2016.

Similarly, Justice Department memoranda from 2000 and 1973 affirm the idea that a president cannot be indicted for a crime by the Justice Department because “the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unduly interfere with the ability of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned duties, and would thus violate the constitutional separation of powers.” Only Congress can prosecute a sitting president via the constitutionally prescribed impeachment.

Yet today we have an ongoing investigation into the President by a part of the executive branch, a faction that has seized power, a malady that Article II’s unitary executive was supposed to cure. The investigation has always been an unconstitutional abomination the moment it was carried over into Trump’s Presidency, and now it is absolutely violating the President’s constitutional rights by piercing his attorney-client privilege. National talk show host and constitutional scholar and attorney Mark Levin on April 9 called the damage being inflicted on the Constitution by this investigation “irreversible.” So, yes, it is absolutely an attack on our country, and as the President stated, “an attack on what we all stand for.”

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

Americans for Limited Government is a non-partisan, nationwide network committed to advancing free market reforms, private property rights and core American liberties. For more information on ALG please visit the website at www.GetLiberty.org. You can also read more articles at www.dailytorch.com.

YOU MAY, HOWEVER, COMMENT THROUGH FACEBOOK.</s>On the ground in Syria, Army and Marine Corps personnel have at times manned a combination of towed M777 155mm howitzers and truck-mounted M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS , the latter of which can fire up to six 227mm GPS-guided rockets before having to reload. It’s an impressive array of firepower, which the United States put on full display in February 2018 to beat back a combined force of Kremlin-linked Russian mercenaries and Assad-aligned militiamen near Deir ez-Zor.

Air Force special operations AC-130U Spooky and AC-130W Stinger II gunships have also been common features in the region, on and off, as have U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters operating from forward bases. Earlier in April 2018, B-1B Bones took over operations from B-52s that had been at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Those swing-wing bombers also recently took part in strikes against Assad’s chemical weapons infrastructure.

Regardless of its composition, a resurgent or evolving ISIS has translated into a spike in U.S. air and artillery strikes in Syria, as well. Though we don’t know exactly what assets have seen additional use, U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle , F-16C Viper , and F-22 Raptor jet combat aircraft, as well as MQ-9 Reaper drones , flying from various bases in the region, form the bulk of the airpower available to American troops in the country and their partners. In January 2018, the service redeployed a squadron of A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft from Turkey to Afghanistan to support a surge in operations in that country.

On top of that, there's the possibility that former ISIS members might seek to form multiple new groups or do so in cooperation with other aggrieved elements in the region. Syria's Al Qaeda-linked Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham , which is reportedly growing in size and capabilities itself, could easily absorb elements of the organization, which might split off once again in the future. In Iraq, some of the Sunni Muslims terrorists have joined with Kurds to form a group called The White Flag , which stands in opposition to the Shia Mulsim majority government in Baghdad, which also launched a crackdown on Kurdish independent aspirations in 2017.

It's also not entirely clear whether or not there is an ISIS revival underway or if the group, or splinter factions, are transforming into a second iteration of the group, which was itself an outgrowth of Al Qaeda-aligned groups in Iraq and Syria. The iteration of ISIS that managed to seize territory and form a parallel state appeared in no small part due to the vacuum the Syrian civil war created in that country and the rapidly degrading security in Iraq after the United States withdrew the bulk of its forces in 2011.

According to Dillon, the remnants of ISIS in eastern Syria are presently concentrated mainly east of the Euphrates closer to the Syria-Iraq border, though the group conducts limited operations as far north as the area around the strategic city of Deir ez-Zor . The river serves as a formal, if dubiously effective deconfliction line between the U.S.-led coalition and Russian forces. It is, by extension, supposed to serve as a boundary between American-backed groups and elements aligned with Assad’s regime, as well.

He added intelligence and other reports had begun noticing the rise in ISIS attacks as early as January 2018, which coincides with a Turkish intervention in northwestern Syria targeting Kurdish fighters that led to significant numbers of American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) personnel leaving their positions in order to aid their comrades. This is something we at The War Zone warned could happen right from the beginning of Turkey's offensive. In March 2018, Dillion acknowledged that the Turkish campaign had caused a slow down in coalition-supported operations against the terrorists.

“We have seen also not just reports, but also corroborated through our own intelligence gathering, that ISIS is starting to conduct more attacks on the west side of the Euphrates River outside of Abu Kamal against pro-regime forces,” Dillon explained. “And then we've also seen – not corroborated by us, but in open source, the retaking of neighborhoods in southern Damascus.”

In a routine press conference on April 17, 2018, U.S. Army Colonel Ryan Dillon, the top spokesperson for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, the American-led coalition fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria, offered new details about the apparent surge in terrorist attacks. On April 16, 2018, The Wall Street Journal had also reported that Trump’s new National Security Advisor John Bolton was in talks with Egyptian, Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari officials about the potential of contributing to a new force that could take over from the approximately 2,000 American troops , as well as other existing coalition personnel and contractors , at some point in the near future. The goal was for those countries to contribute more monetarily to sustain military and civil activities in Syria, as well.

Despite the U.S.-led coalition making significant progress in curtailing the group's activities , ISIS terrorists are making a comeback in certain parts of Syria, especially in areas under the control of the Syrian regime of Bashar Al Assad. The possibility of an 'ISIS 2.0' is a worrying development that comes as President Donald Trump and his administration are looking for ways to extricate U.S. forces from the conflict and replace them with a potentially problematic predominantly Arab coalition consisting of troops from countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Data the U.S. Air Force collects and publishes monthly shows that American manned and unmanned aircraft “released” less than 600 bombs and missiles in both Iraq and Syria in December 2017, reflecting a noticeable drop in operations following the liberation of the Syrian city of Raqqa. But in January 2018, this total rose sharply to nearly 800 and remained well above 700 the following month. The American-led coalition, as a general rule, does not track the number of artillery shells and rockets it fires during operations. “We have – in an effort to make sure that we can contain ISIS in these areas [east of the Euphrates], there is [sic] obstacles that were put into place, and we have since focused some of our air assets to be able to identify targets and conduct deliberate planning,” Dillon noted in his April 2018 press briefing. “And now we're starting to see some more strikes as a result of that.” The colonel didn’t elaborate on what those obstacles are, but they are likely a variety of fortified positions, semi-permanent outposts, and other sites from which American troops and their local Syrian partners can monitor for terrorist movements, call in fire support, and resupply after extended operations. The U.S. military has a number of forward locations it uses throughout eastern Syria. Video footage and images of sites further north, closer to the Turkish border, show special operators, along with conventional supporting troops, with vehicle-mounted and fixed heavy weapons, as well as mortar emplacements, for self-defense and localized patrolling.

But this robust posture, coupled with the need for American troops to keep up pressure on ISIS as various other actors in Syria pursue their own agendas, is visibly at odds with Trump’s desire for both a quick victory and a rapid exit from the country and its nebulous conflict. Earlier in April 2018, the president caught both the public and his own senior advisers off guard by calling for a withdrawal in the near future. “As far as Syria is concerned, our primary mission in terms of that was getting rid of ISIS,” Trump told reporters during a shared press conference with the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania at the White House on April 3, 2018. “We've completed that task and we'll be making a decision very quickly, in coordination with others in the area, as to what we will do.” Unfortunately, as Dillon readily acknowledged in his recent briefing, that mission is far from over and ISIS remains a continuing threat. Pulling American troops out now, and potentially doing so abruptly, would only embolden the terrorists and leave local troops who have been holding the line against the group without critical air, artillery, and materiel support.

Even after Assad’s chemical weapons attack in Douma and the subsequent American-led punitive missile strikes on various regime targets, Trump appears to be determined to end the U.S. military’s presence in the country. He has publicly decried the operation as costly and without many directly tangible benefits to the United States, despite his promise both as a candidate and since becoming president to completely defeat ISIS. And this is where Bolton’s plan for an Arab force to help “stabilize” the situation comes in. But from what we’ve already seen, not only could it be difficult to establish this contingent in the first place, deploying it might exacerbate tensions rather than reduce them. Most immediately is the fact that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE remained locked in a bitter spat with Qatar primarily over the latter country’s diplomatic relations with Iran. They’ve largely blockaded the small peninsular nation and it's highly unlikely that would consent to join together with it in a new coalition. Political tensions between these and other parties have scuttled proposals for an "Arab NATO" and similar regional military organizations for years. On top of that, Egypt is already heavily engaged against ISIS-affiliated terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula, along with far less publicized cooperation with Israel over the crisis in the Gaza Strip and support for groups fighting the internationally-recognized government in Libya. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are themselves deeply mired in a grueling counter-insurgency campaign in Yemen against the Houthis, an Iranian-supported rebel movement.

It could be difficult for any of those countries to find the manpower and other resources to contribute to a broad, effective occupation of eastern Syria for the foreseeable future. And unlike the United States, which has remained laser-focused on containing ISIS, even as it effectively carves out a semi-autonomous region outside of Assad’s control in the process, it's less clear that these additional parties would be able to suppress their other agendas in Syria. Both the Saudis and the Emiratis have already been actively supporting various rebel groups fighting the regime in Damascus, both as part of efforts managed by the U.S. military and Intelligence Community and on their own. Along with Egypt, they are staunchly opposed to Assad, as well as Iran’s rising influence in Syria and the Middle East as a whole. The matter of Iran is the most important factor in this equation. With the exception of Qatar, the countries the Trump Administration is looking to for help in Syria are all looking to or are actively in the process of trying to contain the regime in Tehran and its proxies. As noted, the Saudi-led fight against the Houthis in Yemen is, at least for that coalition, almost inseparably linked with checking Iranian geopolitical expansion in the Middle East. It is hard to believe that they would be able to fully repress their long-standing goals, especially ejecting Iran from the country and unseating its client Assad, during a Syrian deployment and it is almost certain that they would actively try to target Iranian-backed elements, militarily or otherwise, in the name of "stabilization." The eagerness of the Saudis to become involved in such a complex and potentially cost effort only seems to underscore the likelihood that they see these and other additional benefits from establishing a U.S.-endorsed foothold in the country.

“We are in discussions with the U.S. and have been since the beginning of the Syrian crisis [in 2011] about sending forces into Syria,” Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, said at a press conference in Riyadh on April 17, 2018. “We made a proposal to the Obama administration that if the U.S. were to send forces... then Saudi Arabia would consider along with other countries sending forces as part of this contingent. It’s notable that the Obama administration apparently repeatedly declined this offer for years, quite possibly out of concern for how the deployment might further disrupt the situation in Syria. Trump, however, enjoys a much closer relationship with the Saudis and is far less likely to reject their pledge of support in this matter. But we’ve already seen the problems that conflicting agendas can pose in Syria when Turkey, as already noted, unilaterally invaded northwestern Syria in order to destroy elements of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, also known as the YPG, which it sees as a terrorist group and a direct threat to its interests. Turkish authorities launched that operation despite opposition from their own ally, the United States. Since then, Turkish officials have explicitly threatened American troops over their continued support for the predominantly Kurdish SDF, many of whom came from the ranks of the YPG. The situation also prompted many SDF fighters to turn west, which, in no small part, why ISIS both remains a threat and is now regaining some of its strength. And unless it remains under the umbrella of some sort of American protection, which would largely defeat the Trump Administration's goal for such a force, the Arab coalition would be much more susceptible to large and open counter-attacks from Assad or his Iranian or Russian benefactors, as well. As it stands now, U.S. troops are the only obstacle in the way of Turkey expanding its campaign against the Kurds throughout northern Syria and preventing Assad from reasserting control straight to the Iraqi border. This is because no one in the country is eager to spark a larger conflict with the United States, a calculus that would not necessarily apply to Saudi, Egyptian, or Emirati forces.

With all this in mind, the United States is perhaps the main actor in Syria concerned about ISIS and is the one most capable of minimizing the group's ability to conduct activities within the country and elsewhere. It also remains the military most able to provide the air, artillery, and persistent intelligence gathering capabilities, especially when it comes to unmanned aircraft, that have been essential in keeping the terrorists on the run. Until the Syrian geopolitical situation otherwise becomes more stable, a withdrawal of American forces and a decrease in U.S. attention can only realistically provide the terrorists with the room they need to rebuild as other parties distract themselves with their own separate agendas. One simply cannot reliably expect the proposed Arab force simply to fill the gap. Beyond that, there is a distinct risk that doing so would provoke additional tensions and skirmishes that could create a larger conflict that spills over into neighboring countries. Trump may be eager to extricate U.S. forces, and perhaps, more importantly, his administration, from Syria, but it's no good to do so, though, if American troops have to go right back because the situation has completely collapsed and ISIS has revived itself to the point that it can once again to threaten countries through the region.</s>President Donald Trump has made a new move, which is simply NOT to move in pressing new sanctions against the Russian Federation in regards to their support of the Syrian regime under President Bashar al-Assad. This move came as a surprise, because only hours before the US envoy to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, was presenting the move for such new and severe sanctions against Russia.

Sputnik News reports that White House Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders announced that the imposition of new sanctions was being placed on hold.

The reasoning expressed by the administration was simple enough – “We will impose sanctions if Russia makes another bad move. But for now, we will wait and see.”

Donald Trump has [given the order] to postpone the introduction of new sanctions after a comprehensive discussion with his aides. The future punitive measures against Moscow were announced by US envoy to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Sunday, who said Washington was readying to sanction Moscow for supporting the Syrian government. She said that the restrictions would hit the companies that are allegedly “dealing with equipment related to Assad and any chemical weapons use.” According to sources, Trump was “upset” that the sanctions were presented, as he “was not yet comfortable executing them.”

One can expect that CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post will never, ever, officially take President Trump’s side on anything. If any staffer or anchor does, they will be slapped down and put in place immediately. We have already seen this.

When it comes to dealing with all things Russia, then the ridiculous narrative of “collusion with the Russians” is a handy device to try to inject into the news to prevent President Trump from actually doing anything that would LOOK like he was acting like President Putin’s puppet.

On CNN and the pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, the news of the hesitation of imposing new sanctions became fodder for a surprisingly hawkish liberal media establishment. Again, the issue is not about ideology any more deeply than “Stop Trump” at any point possible, by any means possible.

CNN headlined the Washington Post piece: “WaPo: Trump hasn’t signed off on Russia sanctions Haley announced”

The New York Times offered this headline: Trump Declines to Add Sanctions Against Russians, Contradicting Haley

And what an interesting bit of hypocrisy was presented here. Nikki Haley is hated on the Left as a super-hawkish person. She even makes conservatives a bit uncomfortable at times because she seems to be in the UN to tell everyone how the USA is going to kick everyone’s tail unless they buckle down and behave like good little American puppets.

And yet the Big Three lib mouthpieces are faulting Trump for not following his UN envoy’s lead?

When the Syrian airstrikes took place, the mood among the hawkish people was very positive, but the actual number of hawkish people seemed to be few in the USA, because no one who is thinking clearly really wants to chance a war with Russia, and further, many very thoughtful people – including those in the media like Tucker Carlson, Michael Savage and Laura Ingraham, also have taken note of the fact that Syria itself does not present any threat to American national security, and there is literally no reason we should be there.

The hawkish argument that the reason to strike alleged chemical weapons facilities is to keep our troops there out of harm’s way is nullified by the simple fact that the American presence in Syria is illegal in the first place. No one invited us, and our troops, gallant as they are, are trying to enact what is only to be seen as bad policy on the part of their commanders. If we had no troops on the ground there, there would be no threat at all to American interests.

Argument that posits Iran gaining power in the region are equally baseless. Iran delivers a lot of anti-Israel rhetoric, but they never do anything to Israel, and Iran has long been allied with Syria. Since Russia also maintains cordial relations with Israel, it is unlikely that Iran would take a chance at aggravating its major ally.

For the United States mainstream news media community, then, the rule of the day is unchanged:

However, the actual move by Mr. Trump to at least hesitate on sanctions, is a very wise decision. The very things that the MSM try to criticize the President for – the unwillingness to castigate Russia and the hope to reconcile the relationship between the two nations – is cause for hope. Russia has simply never been an enemy power in any of this. The hawks in America – some of whom evidently have a lot of power – refuse to see this. But it is nonetheless true, and this latest move by the President shows that he seems to see this as a way forward instead of the SOP of setting up a straw enemy to wage a fictitious fight against.

Only time will tell.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration are considering replacing the U.S. military forces in Syria with a regional Arab force.