What is happening in Washington?

Written by Nasser Kandil,

In the period followed the election of Donald Trump Washington witnessed a kind of bewilderment by the team which agitates the choice of escalation in the Middle East, it is the team funded by Saudi Arabia and supported by Israel. Despite Trump is a friend of Israel, but he does not reflect its policies which see in the war against Syria a priority for its security in the practical concept, not in the concept of supplying it with money and weapons, this is shared by all the US Presidents. Through the priority of the war on Syria and its preceding among the other issues, the negative position of Trump towards the nuclear understanding with Iran becomes a secondary detail, that pleases his electoral campaign, but it does not affect badly the new international relation which its framework is drawn by the position toward the war on Syria. Trump adopts the abandonment of a goal that is decided by the administration of Obama, and around which many elites of the Republican and Democratic parties agreed, it is the weakening of the country, the army, and the President if their overthrowing was difficult, as well as the bet and the investment on Al-Qaeda organization after improving the image of its Syrian branch which is known by Al Nusra front and later by Fatih Al Sham front. Trump calls to cooperate with Russia within the war on terrorism, he does not see a reason for supporting the factions entitled the opposition which is related to Al-Qaeda organization. Trump does not consider that the hostility towards the country, the army and the President in Syria can be justified by America as long as he does not see a reason for the war on Iraq to topple the former President Saddam Hussein, or for the war on Libya and killing the former President Muammar Al Gaddafi. Therefore, he does not agree with the US presidents George Bush and Barack Obama in their saying that Iraq and Libya have become better after getting rid of the rule of the former presidents.

The signs of bewilderment began to fade replaced by plans of moving by the team which is constituted by the pillars of the neo-conservatives in the Republican Party and from the supports of the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton who was defeated by Trump, these plans stem from the concentration on the humanitarian issue in Syria to make it a meaningful motive to impose sanctions by the Congress on Syria before the Syrian developments move toward a military resolving that imposes a political track, in which some faces of the opposition will participate, so imposing sanctions will become meaningless but only by laying obstacles in front of the political solution, but the main destination of the new plan is to raise the Iranian nuclear issue according to the extremist rhetoric which was adopted by Trump in his electoral campaign, and the support of this speech in order to turn  it into popular one that is binding to Trump, in order to lay in front of him entitlements that precede what is happening in Syria, and impose an early confrontation with Iran and Russia implicitly. There were advices to change the position towards what is going on in Syria as long as Iran is more interested in what is going on there, and what disturbs it is an escalation in the position by arming the factions sponsored by the US intelligence and which their relation with Al Nusra front is known under the slogan of the tactical pressure and the bet on turning it into later final track.

The law draft approved by the Congress through common majority from the Republican and the Democratic parties regarding extending the sanctions against Iran for ten years is included within this framework. It does not seem that the President Barack Obama is in a hurry to use the right of veto against this project, because if he had done that it would have been for deadlines , but the law will remain exist till the arrival of Trump to the White House to deal with it as the first issue regarding the foreign policy that obliges him to choose between what he has said electorally and what is politically realistic, but the adventure is in the early fall or the entry into the trapped confrontation, so there are those who advice Trump to object strongly the law draft on the basis that he called to re-negotiate about the nuclear program. In the context of the negotiation, the return to sanctions forms one of the proposals, not to impose the sanctions or terminate the understanding without reason. As a newly elected President he has alone the popular authorization to draw the foreign policy, he will allow to impose a calendar of foreign policy from outside his vision and his timing. However the rapid movement of Trump seems that it will decide many things, the Iranian position seems stable and decisive by not allowing the approval of this law, because it is a flagrant violation of the understanding, and Iran will be in front of high-ceilings reactions that re-introduce the understanding on the nuclear program according to what was commented by the leaders of Iran on the project approved by the Congress.

In Washington there is an attempt to make use of the popularity of Trump, by turning it from a plan of getting out of wars into a plan for the involvement in them, and when he gets involved due to the withdrawal from the war, its advocates will say Rome from above is different than Rome from below, the involvement in the confrontations is the fate of America as long as the advocates of calm and getting out from the confrontations have found themselves in them, so he will afflicted with abject failure popularly and politically. The choice of making America is by driving it to be interested in its problems and giving up the policies of intervention to serve the Saudi and the Israeli interests, after the wars have lost their American reasons.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,