Trump Has No Say on Who Rules Syria after Al-Assad’s Victories
Local Editor
The Syrian Army's combat victories confirmed President Bashar al-Assad's hold on power and it is laughable to think that US President Donald Trump or the United States can do anything about it, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman told Sputnik.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is "prepared to accept al-Assad's continued rule until Syria's next scheduled presidential election in 2021," New Yorker magazine reported earlier this week, citing US and European officials.
The US State Department on Tuesday, however, refuted these reports and said that the United States believes that the future of Syria will not include al-Assad.
"It's a bit of a joke to premise... the thesis that it is up to Trump, or the United States, to decide who rules Syria," former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman said on Wednesday.
Freeman said US policymakers and pundits were deceiving themselves if they imagined that they could choose or significantly influence who would lead Syria in the coming years following the end of the six-year war that has killed an estimated 600,000 people.
The conflict in Syria had inflicted unprecedented destruction on the country's infrastructure and suffering of its people, and generated several million refugees, Freeman added.
Chas Freeman is a lifetime director of the Atlantic Council and served as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d'affaires at the US embassies in Beijing and Bangkok.
Source: Sputnik, Edited by website team
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