Trump Foreign Policy, more or less simply explained

Several weeks ago President Trump, while enumerating for reporters his accomplishments as POTUS said, "We drove ISIS off our land." He was referring to Raqqa and Mosul. 

I  blurted, "What you mean our land, Kemosabe?" 

Could it have been a slip of the tongue? If so it was a Freudian slip. I have no idea what's going on with the U.S. in Iraq; I'm afraid to find out. But the U.S. and U.S.-backed proxy forces have already grabbed one-third of the entire country of Syria, which includes resources -- oil, water, and fertile farmland -- that are critically needed to rebuild the country and sustain the Syrian populace.

Mr Trump has said he wants to sell this Syrian land to the Saudis. But as near as I can figure his plan is to sell the land then have the Saudis pay him to have American troops or proxies guard the land, thereby realizing a profit for the U.S. from the deal. Another payment option would be for the Saudis to buy more U.S. weapons, which they'll store in a warehouse along with all the other weapons they bought from the U.S. and don't want. 

Either way, when Mr Trump says he wants to pay somebody, what he means is that he wants to make an appearance of making a payment although he's actually making a sale.  

I suppose it's not as complicated as it sounds if one is in real estate. Anyhow he's looking at the Syrian land he grabbed as real estate, to be auctioned off if he doesn't consider it worth his while to develop. 

There, in a nutshell, is the Trump foreign policy. So where does this policy fit with Mr Trump's talk about invoking a "righteous power" to punish Syria's president for poisoning little babies? 

It doesn't fit. His excuse for bombing Syrian government installations was hot air. 

As to whether Mr Trump plans to develop Raqqa somehow I don't think so, and lots of luck with trying to auction it. More than 80 percent of Raqqa was left uninhabitable after the US-backed SDF operation to cleanse the city of ISIS.

Mosul fared a little better:

... six of the 44 districts in western Mosul were destroyed, according to the United Nations. Every district in Mosul received damage that was at least ‘light,' or ‘moderate.'

The UN stats on Raqqa and Mosul were mentioned in Sputnik's April 20 report, US Military Focus Shifts from Iraq, Syria to Afghanistan, Bombing Report Shows.

The headline would strike fear among many Afghans including Afghanistan's former president, Hamid Karzai. He recently confessed to a Sputnik interviewer that while president he'd tried without success to eject the Americans from Afghanistan. 

Darn right he didn't succeed. The Americans branded him mentally ill when he started saying loudly that NATO-ISAF military operations in the country sucked. He's lucky he wasn't carted off to a mental institution somewhere in Alaska.

He also told Sputnik that he hoped the Russians would come to Kabul's aid in dealing with the Taliban and Islamic State given all that the Americans excelled at was getting a lot of Afghans killed. But then Karzai always was a complainer.

I should remind him that the U.S.-led NATO/ISAF mission also excelled at getting a lot of American soldiers killed for no good reason, beyond trying to help the Saudi and British regimes mollify Pakistan's overlords. 

To return to Trump Foreign Policy in Syria. Given the April 20 Sputnik report, is it possible that Mr Trump will actually order all U.S. troops out of Syria as soon as ISIS is wiped out there? 

To feel our way to an answer, consider RT's April 19 report, Iraqi air forces carry out strikes on ISIS positions in Syria:

Iraqi air forces have launched strikes on Islamic State positions in Syria, the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said. They were carried out in coordination with the Syrian government, the Iraqi military confirmed.

The airstrikes demonstrate the increased capacity of the Iraqi forces to “pursue and eliminate terrorism,” the statement from the Iraqi PM office added.

“Our heroic air force carried out, on Thursday, in Syria near the Iraqi border, deadly airstrikes against Daesh's [Islamic State] terrorists gangs,” the statement from the PM’s Media Office on Twitter said. ...

And this April 17 Military Times report Why US forces remain near Manbij while ISIS has moved elsewhere in Syria:

The final pockets of Islamic State fighters in Syria are hundreds of miles from the northern Syrian town of Manbij, but U.S. forces will remain there to prevent ISIS fighters from returning, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The U.S. will say publicly it has about 2,000 troops in Syria. An untold number of them are concentrated around Manbij. The city is located in the north, near the Turkey-Syria border and has become a hot spot for potential skirmishes between Turkish forces and the Kurdish-partnered forces the U.S. has worked with to drive ISIS from the country.

While most ISIS fighters are located farther south and along the Syria-Iraq border, Manbij is still vulnerable to ISIS resurgence, Dillon said.

[I think the reporter, Tara Copp, is referring to Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the Combined Joint Task Force, Operation Inherent Resolve, U.S. Central Command. People who read Military Times are expected to know these things.]

[...]

Turkish president Recep Erdogan has repeatedly challenged the coalition’s presence in Manbij and vowed to remove many of the same fighters the U.S. has worked with from the border region.

Dillon said the U.S. presence in Manbij would continue.

“Even though ISIS is not, you know, flying their black flag in certain areas, that doesn’t mean that it is not a threat in these areas,” he said.

[END REPORT]

So. U.S. troops can't leave Manbij in case they might spot ISIS pussyfooting around near there. 

As to whether other American troops in the country plan to go after the Islamic State pocket "farther south and along the Syria-Iraq border," this is the odd part. The ISIS pocket under discussion is located behind American lines along the Iraq-Syria border. As I've noted before every time Syrian troops try rout the pocket, the Americans bomb the troops to shoo them away.

Is this why the Iraqi air force is now bombing ISIS positions along the same border? Maybe it's the only way considering that the U.S. hasn't done anything about the pocket. 

Why haven't they done anything? 

A guess is that bombing isn't enough. It could take boots on the ground to wipe out those ISIS fighters. The U.S. command might not be able to find enough reliable proxy forces for the operation -- remember that several Kurdish fighters are ticked off at Washington right now -- and wouldn't want headlines in the USA about American soldiers dying in battles with ISIS in Syria or being captured.   

   

If the guess is in the ballpark, why in Sam Hill wouldn't the U.S. simply allow the Syrian army to go after the ISIS positions?

I might get the answer from my correspondence course on how to get rich in real estate, which I'm taking to study how Trump Foreign Policy works out in practice. 

As soon as I finish the course I'll let you know. 

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