Biden Advised to Hold Negotiations with Preconditions with Assad

Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) talk with members of US forces in Darbasiya, Syria. (Reuters)
Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) talk with members of US forces in Darbasiya, Syria. (Reuters)
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Biden Advised to Hold Negotiations with Preconditions with Assad

Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) talk with members of US forces in Darbasiya, Syria. (Reuters)
Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) talk with members of US forces in Darbasiya, Syria. (Reuters)

Before US President Joe Biden could complete his “Syria team”, Washington was bombarded by demands during its transitional period to opt for a new approach to tackle the war-torn country. Among them is a phased approach with Damascus based on negotiations with president Bashar Assad.

Kurdish romance
So far, among the appointments to the team is Brett McGurk, who has been selected as coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Security Council. McGurk was previously described by Ankara as the new Lawrence of Arabia due to his sympathy with the Kurds in their plight against Turkey. In fact, one of the main reasons that prompted his resignation from the previous administration was Donald Trump’s “abandonment” of the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces – Washington’s key ally in the fight against ISIS – when he declared that he was pulling out American troops from Syria.

McGurk will be joined by Zahra Bell, who was in charge of facilitating inter-Kurdish Syrian dialogue to boost stability in the region, which boasts some 500 American soldiers, who in turn support 100,000 SDF fighters. The SDF controls a fourth of Syria’s territory and about 80 percent of its resources, making it a valuable asset for Washington in negotiations with Moscow, Tehran, Damascus and Ankara.

Questions remain over who will be named US special representative for Syria to succeed James Jeffery and Joel Rayburn. Questions have also been raised as to whether the Syria file will be handled by the National Security Council or whether the Secretary of State will adopt a more hands-on approach, like the one taken by Mike Pompeo and his team. Pompeo advocated the “maximum pressure” economic, political and military policy against Damascus and pushed for its continued political Arab and western isolation.

On the margin
There appears to be consensus that the Syrian conflict will not be high on Biden’s list of priorities. The new administration appears to be focused on the strained ties with Russia and efforts to return to the Iran nuclear deal.

Even though Syria will likely to remain on the margin, numerous articles, researches and studies have been published, suggesting a new American approach to the conflict. Former US Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford was among the first to declare that the US policy in Syria had “failed” in achieving it declared goals. Writing to Foreign Policy, he said that it has only succeeded in the fight against ISIS. He suggested that Washington cooperate with Russia and Turkey in Syria even though those two countries often go it alone in tackling several issues in the conflict.

Meanwhile, Lebanese, Syrian and western figures appealed to Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron to lift sanctions against Damascus. In a letter to the two leaders, they urged them to adopt a new approach.

Former US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, meanwhile, sprung a surprise by calling for a new American approach in Syria. The official is known for being one of Assad’s fiercest critics, so his article, with Hrair Balian, in Responsible Statescraft raised a few eyebrows when he noted that the Biden administration “has an opportunity to re-evaluate US policy on Syria, prioritizing diplomacy to advance our interests.”

“One of us (Feltman) has been known for years as a strong critic of Syrian president Bashar Assad and Syria’s domestic and external policies. The other (Balian) has been a strong critic of the notion that pressure alone will change what we consider to be problematic behavior,” they added.

Two options
“Our policy differences, especially regarding Assad remain strong, making our joint recommendation that much more significant. Indeed, we agree that, with the exception of confronting the ISIS threat in northeast Syria, US policy since 2011 has failed to produce positive results – and that a pivot is necessary,” they said.

“US interests in Syria include eliminating the threat posed by terrorist groups, preventing the use and proliferation of chemical weapons, and alleviating the suffering of millions of civilians whose lives have been shattered by the combination of war, repression, corruption and sanctions,” they added.

“Current US policy — centered on isolating and sanctioning Syria — has succeeded in crippling the country’s already war-ravaged economy, but it has failed to produce behavioral change … Instead, these policies contributed to Syria’s deepening reliance on Russia and Iran,” they remarked.

“The United States is now confronted with a choice between the current approach, which has succeeded only in contributing to a festering failed state, or a reconceived diplomatic process that aims to develop a detailed framework for engaging the Syrian government on a limited set of concrete and verifiable steps, which, if implemented, will be matched by targeted assistance and sanctions adjustments from the United States and EU,” they stressed.

The Carter Center provided a framework for a phased approach to the conflict. It is based on interviews with US, European, Russian and UN officials, analysts at think tanks and universities, and Syrians from across the country’s multiple political divides. It suggested that Washington exempt efforts to combat COVID-19 in Syria from its sanctions. It also proposed facilitating the rebuilding of civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools, and the gradual easing of American and European sanctions on condition that these steps should not be taken before Damascus makes tangible steps from its end.

Damascus is required to release detained political detainees, ensure the safe and dignified return of refugees to their homes, protect civilians and ensure the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to all regions. It must eliminate all of its chemical weapons arsenal in line with the 2013 agreement, carry out political and security reforms, including demonstrate goodwill at the Geneva talks, and adopt decentralized governance.

No gift to Damascus
Supporters of this approach believe that the majority of countries have years ago abandoned their demand for Assad to step down. And yet, these countries have continued to adopt their policy of pressure and isolation that has failed to achieve any reform.

“The escalating economic crisis, coupled with rising concern over the current trajectory in Syria, may present an opportunity to test an alternative, more pragmatic approach. This would defer resolution of the most contentious issues while focusing instead on a more limited set of reforms in return for reconstruction assistance and sanctions relief. The aim would be to stabilize the current situation in Syria and build some forward momentum for a larger diplomatic process to end the warm” said the report.

“For US and European policymakers, the Syrian government’s human rights record and its close alignment with geopolitical adversaries Russia and Iran make engagement politically hazardous, especially without evidence that it would lead to meaningful concessions. By comparison, continuing to isolate Syria is commonly perceived as a low-cost, low-risk strategy that avoids rewarding the government for crimes committed over the course of the war,” it added.

“The current diplomatic approach is leading nowhere, or worse. While conditions may not yet be in place for productive negotiations, the August 2020 visit by two senior US officials to Damascus to obtain the release of US citizens held in Syria has at least opened the door to explore new avenues for dialogue, possibly on broader issues,” it noted.

Critics of the new approach say that it lacks geopolitical depth, especially in regards to the Iranian and Turkish presence in Syria.



Donald Trump Has Sweeping Plans for 2nd Administration. Here's What He's Proposed

FILE - In this June 23, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump tours a section of the border wall in San Luis, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - In this June 23, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump tours a section of the border wall in San Luis, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
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Donald Trump Has Sweeping Plans for 2nd Administration. Here's What He's Proposed

FILE - In this June 23, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump tours a section of the border wall in San Luis, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - In this June 23, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump tours a section of the border wall in San Luis, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Donald Trump has promised sweeping action in a second administration.

The former president and now president-elect often skipped over details but through more than a year of policy pronouncements and written statements outlined a wide-ranging agenda that blends traditional conservative approaches to taxes, regulation and cultural issues with a more populist bent on trade and a shift in America's international role.

Trump's agenda also would scale back federal government efforts on civil rights and expand presidential powers.

A look at what Trump has proposed, according to The Associated Press:

Immigration “Build the wall!” from his 2016 campaign has become creating “the largest mass deportation program in history.” Trump has called for using the National Guard and empowering domestic police forces in the effort. Still, Trump has been scant on details of what the program would look like and how he would ensure that it targeted only people in the US illegally. He’s pitched “ideological screening” for would-be entrants, ending birth-right citizenship (which almost certainly would require a constitutional change), and said he’d reinstitute first-term policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” limiting migrants on public health grounds and severely limiting or banning entrants from certain majority-Muslim nations. Altogether, the approach would not just crack down on illegal migration, but curtail immigration overall.

Abortion Trump played down abortion as a second-term priority, even as he took credit for the Supreme Court ending a woman’s federal right to terminate a pregnancy and returning abortion regulation to state governments. At Trump’s insistence, the GOP platform, for the first time in decades, did not call for a national ban on abortion. Trump maintains that overturning Roe v. Wade is enough on the federal level.

Still, Trump has not said explicitly that he would veto national abortion restrictions if they reached his desk. And in an example of how the conservative movement might proceed with or without Trump, anti-abortion activists note that the GOP platform still asserts that a fetus should have due process protections under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. That constitutional argument is a roadmap for conservatives to seek a national abortion ban through federal courts.

Taxes Trump’s tax policies broadly tilt toward corporations and wealthier Americans. That’s mostly due to his promise to extend his 2017 tax overhaul, with a few notable changes that include lowering the corporate income tax rate to 15% from the current 21%. That also involves rolling back Democratic President Joe Biden’s income tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans and scrapping Inflation Reduction Act levies that finance energy measures intended to combat climate change.

Those policies notwithstanding, Trump has put more emphasis on new proposals aimed at working- and middle class Americans: exempting earned tips, Social Security wages and overtime wages from income taxes. It’s noteworthy, however, that his proposal on tips, depending on how Congress might write it, could give a back-door tax break to top wage earners by allowing them to reclassify some of their pay as tip income — a prospect that at its most extreme could see hedge-fund managers or top-flight attorneys taking advantage of a policy that Trump frames as being designed for restaurant servers, bartenders and other service workers.

Tariffs and trade Trump’s posture on international trade is to distrust world markets as harmful to American interests. He proposes tariffs of 10% to 20% on foreign goods — and in some speeches has mentioned even higher percentages. He promises to reinstitute an August 2020 executive order requiring that the Food and Drug Administration buy “essential” medications only from U.S. companies. He pledges to block purchases of “any vital infrastructure” in the US by Chinese buyers.

DEI, LGBTQ and civil rights Trump has called for rolling back societal emphasis on diversity and for legal protections for LGBTQ citizens. Trump has called for ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government institutions, using federal funding as leverage.

On transgender rights, Trump promises generally to end “boys in girls’ sports,” a practice he insists, without evidence, is widespread. But his policies go well beyond standard applause lines from his rally speeches. Among other ideas, Trump would roll back the Biden administration’s policy of extending Title IX civil rights protections to transgender students, and he would ask Congress to require that only two genders can be recognized at birth.

Regulation, federal bureaucracy and presidential power The president-elect seeks to reduce the role of federal bureaucrats and regulations across economic sectors. Trump frames all regulatory cuts as an economic magic wand. He pledges precipitous drops in US households’ utility bills by removing obstacles to fossil fuel production, including opening all federal lands for exploration — even though U.S energy production is already at record highs. Trump promises to unleash housing construction by cutting regulations — though most construction rules come from state and local government. He also says he would end “frivolous litigation from the environmental extremists.”

The approach would in many ways strengthen executive branch influence. That power would come more directly from the White House.

He would make it easier to fire federal workers by classifying thousands of them as being outside civil service protections. That could weaken the government’s power to enforce statutes and rules by reducing the number of employees engaging in the work and, potentially, impose a chilling effect on those who remain.

Trump also claims that presidents have exclusive power to control federal spending even after Congress has appropriated money. Trump argues that lawmakers’ budget actions “set a ceiling” on spending but not a floor — meaning the president’s constitutional duty to “faithfully execute the laws” includes discretion on whether to spend the money. This interpretation could set up a court battle with Congress.

As a candidate, he also suggested that the Federal Reserve, an independent entity that sets interest rates, should be subject to more presidential power. Though he has not offered details, any such move would represent a momentous change to how the US economic and monetary systems work.

Education The federal Department of Education would be targeted for elimination in a second Trump administration. That does not mean that Trump wants Washington out of classrooms. He still proposes, among other maneuvers, using federal funding as leverage to pressure K-12 school systems to abolish tenure and adopt merit pay for teachers and to scrap diversity programs at all levels of education. He calls for pulling federal funding “for any school or program pushing Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”

In higher education, Trump proposes taking over accreditation processes for colleges, a move he describes as his “secret weapon” against the “Marxist Maniacs and lunatics” he says control higher education. Trump takes aim at higher education endowments, saying he will collect “billions and billions of dollars” from schools via “taxing, fining and suing excessively large private university endowments” at schools that do not comply with his edicts. That almost certainly would end up in protracted legal fights.

As in other policy areas, Trump isn’t actually proposing limiting federal power in higher education but strengthening it. He calls for redirecting the confiscated endowment money into an online “American Academy” offering college credentials to all Americans without a tuition charges. “It will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness allowed,” Trump said on Nov. 1, 2023.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid Trump insists he would protect Social Security and Medicare, popular programs geared toward older Americans and among the biggest pieces of the federal spending pie each year. There are questions about how his proposal not to tax tip and overtime wages might affect Social Security and Medicare. If such plans eventually involved only income taxes, the entitlement programs would not be affected. But exempting those wages from payroll taxes would reduce the funding stream for Social Security and Medicare outlays. Trump has talked little about Medicaid but his first administration, in general, defaulted to approving state requests for waivers of various federal rules and it broadly endorsed state-level work requirements for recipients.

Affordable Care Act and Health Care As he has since 2015, Trump calls for repealing the Affordable Care Act and its subsidized health insurance marketplaces. But he still has not proposed a replacement: In a September debate, he insisted he had the “concepts of a plan.” In the latter stages of the campaign, Trump played up his alliance with former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines and of pesticides used in US agriculture. Trump repeatedly told rally crowds that he would put Kennedy in charge of “making America healthy again."

Climate and energy Trump, who claims falsely that climate change is a “hoax,” blasts Biden-era spending on cleaner energy designed to reduce US reliance on fossil fuels. He proposes an energy policy – and transportation infrastructure spending – anchored to fossil fuels: roads, bridges and combustion-engine vehicles. “Drill, baby, drill!” was a regular chant at Trump rallies. Trump says he does not oppose electric vehicles but promises to end all Biden incentives to encourage EV market development. Trump also pledges to roll back Biden-era fuel efficiency standards.

Workers’ rights Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance framed their ticket as favoring America’s workers. But Trump could make it harder for workers to unionize. In discussing auto workers, Trump focused almost exclusively on Biden’s push toward electric vehicles. When he mentioned unions, it was often to lump “the union bosses and CEOs” together as complicit in “this disastrous electric car scheme.” In an Oct. 23, 2023, statement, Trump said of United Auto Workers, “I’m telling you, you shouldn’t pay those dues.”

National defense and America’s role in the world Trump’s rhetoric and policy approach in world affairs is more isolationist diplomatically, non-interventionist militarily and protectionist economically than the US has been since World War II. But the details are more complicated. He pledges expansion of the military, promises to protect Pentagon spending from austerity efforts and proposes a new missile defense shield — an old idea from the Reagan era during the Cold War. Trump insists he can end Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war, without explaining how. Trump summarizes his approach through another Reagan phrase: “peace through strength.” But he remains critical of NATO and top US military brass. “I don’t consider them leaders,” Trump said of Pentagon officials that Americans “see on television.” He repeatedly praised authoritarians like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.