Anthony Blinken, senior foreign policy adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, has revealed that under Biden’s presidency, the United States will maintain a military presence in northeastern Syria as a lever against the government of President Bashar Al Assad, according to the US Al Monitor website.
Blinken said in an interview with the US “CBS” on Tuesday that hundreds of US forces stationed in northeastern Syria to advise the partner forces fighting ISIS and secure oil fields in the region will remain there, if Biden is elected president in November.
“They shouldn’t be there for oil,” Trump said.
He explained, “But he happened to be near oil.
This is a point of influence because the Syrian government would like to control these resources.
We should not give it up for free”.
Donald Trump’s administration policy on Syria has prioritized preventing the return of ISIS, weakening Iranian influence, and pushing for a lasting political settlement to end the war, according to Al Monitor website.
Blinken accused the current administration of giving up significant influence to Russia and Iran, which support Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, and Turkey, which supports the opposition seeking to topple him.
He said: Now, what is the existing diplomatic process?
The United States is absent… I cannot guarantee success.
I can guarantee that we are in Biden’s administration, at least.
Blinken also made a candid assessment of what he considered to be the failures of the Barack Obama administration in Syria.
He said: “This is personal to me, and any of us – and I begin with myself – who had any responsibility for our policy toward Syria in the previous administration, must admit that we failed, not because we didn’t want to try, but we failed”.
“It is something that I will take with me for the rest of my days,” said Blinken, who served as US Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017.
The Al Monitor website report said that Blinken is not the first former Obama administration official to regret not doing more in Syria, where Obama drew a famous red line on the use of chemical weapons that he never imposed on military force.
Trump took limited, but direct military action against the regime.
A permitted missile attack in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians in April 2017 was among the most widely accepted foreign policy decisions.
The following year, Britain and France joined the United States in yet another round of strikes on Syrian military targets.
Since his candidacy for the presidency, Biden has called for the use of US military force wisely, but he has also described what he considers a “moral imperative” to respond to genocide or the use of chemical weapons worldwide.
Asked if the Biden administration would consider normalizing relations with the government of President Bashar Al Assad, Blinken said it was “practically impossible” to imagine that.
As the war receded in northwestern Syria, many regional players indicated that they would welcome Assad’s return to the international community.
The Syrian government, damaged by the sanctions, needs hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild, and countries and other investors will benefit.
The Al Monitor website report said that the so-called “Caesar’s Act” could make this difficult.
The US measure, which permits the imposition of sanctions on governments and private companies that provide financial or other support to the Syrian government, will come into effect on June 17.
