#syrian rebels

Saudi channels are reporting that Assad has "quietly" asked Israel for help in fighting the various rebel groups, in exchange for Syria moving away from Iran, and stopping weapons shipments from Iran to Hezbollah through Syria. This proves that Syria is an open conduit of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

1) OK, maybe, but we all know Assad can't be trusted for 5 minutes.

2) Would this mean allying with Syria's partner, Russia?

3) Maybe this would be the lesser of 2 evils.

4) Get Syria to sign the Abraham accords first.

5) Israel is already fighting Iran-backed rebels.

6) Israel should ask Syria to put in writing, any claim to the Golan heights.

Six months ago I met a Syrian man, Ahmed, who was broadcasting a TikTok live. He lived in a camp for people who had lost their homes during the war and spent his days on TikTok giving out food to the hungry children of the camp, while soliciting donations for future meals.

Initially believing this to be a scam, I took to Google, only to find a BBC article discussing this exact situation: Syrians displaced from the homes during the war, no humanitarian aid, no employment opportunities, but working with a TikTok middle man who gave them phones to broadcast from. TikTok supported this unofficial program because, for every monetary gift the creator received, TikTok kept 70% of the donation, releasing only 30% to the account holder. Great money making deal for TikTok!

Now, I can feel you rolling your eyes in disbelief at my naivety. If I heard someone else telling this story, I’d react the same way. Over time, Ahmed and I became good friends. We speak every day, share our family stories, check in on each other, and learn about the cultural differences in our lives. After 6 months of these conversations, speaking with his family and fact checking their experiences in the war (city, dates of displacement, locating their former home on Google maps) I trust these people completely.

These people have fully accepted me into their life, and I consider them true family. Let me tell you who they are…

Ahmed is 29 years old. He is who I first saw on the broadcast. He has a wife and 2 children. He lives in a large tent, hot in the summer, cold in the winter. They have a small portable gas stove, a wood stove during the winter (which burns hazelnut shells as fuel) and frequently cook their meals outside over open fire, as this is a cheaper alternative to gas for the stove.

He lives next to his younger brother, Bassam, who is also married and expecting a baby boy soon. They all have the same tent setup, each with their own wood stove, but sharing the cooking supplies and other living essentials.

Ahmed and Bassam both live next to their parents, 2 teenage brothers and 1 teenage sister. They also have 3 sisters who have married and live in other camps with their husbands’ family.

This extended family has all lived in this camp for around 8 years now. They fled their home in the midst of a battle between the Syrian regime and rebel militias who each wanted to control the area, integral to the success of either side. They saw nightmarish scenes as they ran; bodies of the dead and injured all around them. They took nothing with them as they ran. Ahmed says, “We escaped with only our souls.”

For 6 months I’ve been sending Ahmed and his family money every 2 weeks, through Western Union, since TikTok takes an excessive amount. Western Union and PayPal don‘t allow direct transfer to anyone in Syria due to the US sanctions, however there is a community of generous people in Turkey who will pickup the transferred money and meet with Ahmed to give him cash. And yes, I have confirmed that he receives the money every time.

Ahmed used to make some relatively decent money on his TikTok videos, however overtime the algorithm changed. It started banning his accounts, or simply hiding them from viewers. Donations dwindled down to nearly nothing and he can no longer feed the children of the camp, or his own family.

The money I send provides breathing room for survival, though not to a level of comfort. Food is meager, usually a breakfast off bread, olive oil and za’atar. Lunch is a larger meal of soup and bread, and dinner is sometimes, often, skipped. Meat of any kind is a rare treat, usually lamb or chicken. Eggplant, tomatoes, bread, fava beans, lentils, rice, pickles, and fresh mild green peppers.

The speed with which Syrian rebels have overrun areas recently under control of the al-Assad dictatorship is amazing. If you had asked a week ago what HTS was, I probably would have replied that it was a K-Pop group. But Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies have apparently just captured Daraa and are now in the center of Homs.

There are unconfirmed reports that rebels have now reached the suburbs of Damascus. The government has felt it necessary to issue a statement saying President al-Assad hasn't fled the capital.

Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez have ruled Syria since 1971. Both father and son have been ruthless violators of human rights with the blood of tens of thousands of Syrians on their hands.

There are more than a few areas where public opinion in Middle America stands in sharp contrast to the groupthink that occurs in Washington. One of these areas of discord is Syria and whether American troops should be involved in that country’s seven-year civil war.

While the American public supported President Trump’s limited airstrikes in Syria against the regime of Bashar al-Assad following its use of chemical weapons and the fight to eliminate the Islamic State — a radical Sunni group — the public is roundly convinced U.S. troops should not be on the ground in Syria to topple the Assad government. Americans have also long opposed arming anti-Assad rebel groups — a huge portion of which happen to be radical jihadists — despite the Western media’s repeated attempts to whitewash and overlook the rebels’ extremism.

In other words, Americans support fighting jihadists, but they are done with regime change and do not want our soldiers embroiled in a complex civil war full of bad guys on all sides. And “complex” is an understatement.

On one side of this war sits the Assad regime in the west, its Shia-Muslim supporters Iran and Hezbollah, and Russia — the Assad regime’s benefactor since the Cold War. Allied with Assad are religious minorities including Yazidis and Christians.

On the other side are endless groups of Sunni Muslim rebels trying to topple the regime. These rebels include the Islamic State, and jihadist groups that are affiliated with al-Qaeda. Added to the fray is Sunni Turkey — a member of NATO and a supposed U.S. ally — who has intervened to fight Assad, and to fight Kurdish forces who are aligned with America in the fight against ISIS in Syria’s north. Meanwhile, the Sunni Gulf States led by Saudi Arabia have heavily supported the Sunni rebels’ efforts with arms, money, and supplies.

Fortunately, with jihadist groups on the run, there is a chance the Syrian civil war could be nearing an end. In other words, the Assad regime is gaining ground, its grip on power a fait accompli. Russian and Syrian jets have stepped up their bombing of Islamic State positions along the Jordan-Israel border in southwestern Syria. And the White Helmets, an aide group affiliated with the Sunni-rebels, have pulled out and moved to Jordan.

The defeat of ISIS means U.S. troops should be coming home, which is exactly what most Americans want. Yet when they watch cable or network news, or read The New York Times’ editorial page, Americans might think they are the only ones who believe the U.S. should stay out of this war. The Beltway establishment has been calling for U.S. troops on the ground in Syria — to take out the Assad regime — for years. The political class are so convinced American troops should be in Syria that they don’t even bother to make good arguments as to why, or respond to valid criticism of such misguided, unproductive policies.

Because Trump has expressed that he wants U.S. troops out of Syria, they say that he is at risk of being taken “advantage” of by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Others say that Trump is a “sell out … to Putin.” Alleged foreign policy gurus like Max Boot — who have been wrong about everything for decades — claim that pulling America out of Syria would make us subservient to Russia or would be “handing Putin a victory.”

Some of these so-called pundits have even suggested that Trump’s decision to end the CIA’s arming of Syrian rebels — which cost one billion dollars per year and was both overwhelmingly ineffective and resulted in American weapons ending up in the hands of al-Qaida thugs — is evidence of some nefarious hold that Russia has over Trump.

Most of the time, when someone makes a personal attack or smear instead of making a reasoned case, it’s because they don’t have a good argument to make. This holds true here.

When they can muster one, the argument that is made by the foreign policy establishment says that ceding Syria to Russia and Iran would be a terrible development. Vox wrote that Trump is “desperate” to remove U.S. troops from Syria, and frets this would free up the Assad regime to take back rebel positions in southwestern Syria. Likewise, The Wall Street Journal editorial board knocked Trump for wanting to replicate a July 2017 de-escalation agreement with Russia, which would allow America to pull its troops out of southwestern Syria. The Journal’s editors said Trump was being “conned” by Russia.

But Russia has operated in Syria since the Cold War. And Iran has had some influence there for decades, mostly a result of religious similarities between Alawites and Shias.

Why should America care if Syria becomes Russia’s problem and not ours? More importantly, what really matters isn’t what is bad for Putin and Russia, but what is good for America. Despite a defense budget higher in real terms than what Reagan spent during the Cold War, America’s military is seriously overstretched. At a time when we must pivot away from these Middle Eastern political battles and focus on deterring great power conflict, the U.S. can’t afford to get bogged down in Syria.

As for Iran’s influence, which has been the status quo for many decades, the Assad regime would gladly not be subservient to the Mullahs in Tehran forever. But that can only happen if Assad no longer fears for his life.

The other truth is that America’s past efforts to intervene — which include the billions of dollars spent by the CIA to arm anti-Assad jihadists — have only prolonged the civil war. Up to half a million people have been killed as a result of this terrible war, and another 10 million made refugees. Continuing the war by aiding anti-Assad rebels means more bloodshed and destabilization.

This brings us to the most important point. There is a very real question of what would happen if Assad’s government were ever actually toppled. It is likely that the forces that would replace Assad — unless America remained in Syria for a very long time — would be worse than the Assad regime. Aside from the Kurds that live in Syria’s north, the U.S. doesn’t have a true ally in this fight. In other words, it’s not in America’s interest to be there.

Americans are sick of endless wars, and a bipartisan consensus of ordinary Americans yearns for more realism, restraint, and plain common sense in U.S. foreign policy. Washington must give up its obsession with toppling regimes. We must eliminate direct threats to America, not spend trillions in failed attempts to re-engineer societies, especially in strategically unimportant lands, as we have since 9/11.

The Beltway elite need to make better arguments before we mess with the status quo and put American men and women in harm’s way to fight what, at best, looks like the continuation of the 1,400 year struggle between Shia and Sunni Muslims. At worst, this looks like a conflict with at least four different sides that could lead to World War III.