Trump Meets Syrian Leader - 'Assad' Is SO Last Year
Al-Monitor dutifully reports President Trump's upcoming meeting with Syria's new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, positioning it as a move to 're-establish Syria's ties with world powers.' This reads like polite amnesia. The same 'world powers' that once lambasted Bashar al-Assad as an unredeemable dictator now line up to shake the hand of his successor, who, let's remember, seized power just last
December. (How neat, how tidy.) One might wonder if the U.S. government, (which, incidentally, spent billions supporting various factions trying to overthrow Assad across two administrations), now hopes Mr. Sharaa will just… forget all that. It certainly appears the 'democracy' plank of foreign policy is flexibly applied, depending on who's in charge and what geopolitical chess needs playing. It's
almost as if 'authoritarian' is a temporary designation, easily laundered with a fresh face and a few pleasantries in the Oval Office. Convenient, isn't it?