Is President Trumps Syria Withdrawal Gambit an Anti-Impeachment Card? How Donald Trump Uses This to Win in 2020 by Joaquin Flores!
(2019-10-11 at 16:13:13 )

Is President Trumps Syria Withdrawal Gambit an Anti-Impeachment Card? How Donald Trump Uses This to Win in 2020 by Joaquin Flores

The 19th century Baptist Particular preacher from England, Charles Spurgeon, is best known for the one-line wisdom: "A lie spreads half way around the world while the truth is putting on his shoes."

But what of half-truths, do they spread a quarter-way, or a third? Are these more like lies, or more like the truth?

By now the half-truth that President Trump announced the pull-out of United States forces from its activities aiding the Kurdish separatists in Syria, on Monday, for the sole purpose of distracting the whole discourse from the impeachment proceedings against the sitting president, has spread at least some portion around the world by now.

A half-truth? It is indeed true that President Trump had said the time had come for the United States to extricate itself from its series of "ridiculous endless wars", something which, before Donald Trump, no Republican president in living memory has said.

The impeachment itself has the look and feel of yet another Democratic Party impeachment stunt, one which in all reality will have a difficult time getting through the House of Representatives and perhaps an impossible time getting through Senate, given President Trumps overall popularity among the energized base which numerous critical Senators will rely on.

If the process would go through to the Senate, it is Chief Justice Roberts that would preside on the trial part, and being bound by his conservative record, it is nigh impossible that Mr. Roberts would be friendly to efforts to remove Donald Trump on the extremely squishy grounds they would be presented on.

After all, creating such future precedents would ultimately have a destabilizing effect on the executive branch, thereby threatening the constitutional framework of checks and balances between the two branches in question.

But the controversy surrounding the impeachment itself would be enough to raise serious questions in the minds of at least 1% of voters, to at minimum refrain from voting.

That is all Mr. Biden would need if he then, in turn, focusses his campaign on a few critical swing states.

That is what the strategy for Mr. Biden might hinge on - or is it?

If the impeachment process goes through to the end, but ultimately fails, there is probably no other figure in United States of American politics that could use the failure alone to energize his base to such a degree that the failure alone is part of what delivers victory to Donald Trump towards a second term.

Whatever the case, for certain there is more here than meets the eye to this, and in politics nothing is random, nothing is coincidental.

There is no doubt that there is a connection between the impeachment proceedings and President Trumps sudden announcement on Syria and the Kurdish YPG.

The honest question right now is simple enough: Is Donald Trumps announcement a mere distraction from moves to impeach him?

No, it goes deeper than this - and here is why.

While this was not the first time either he as president, nor as candidate, he had said as much, along with this announcement came a specific and determined public order of sorts: United States of American troops would be pulled back from northern Syria as the Turkish military prepares to clean up Kurdish forces active in the region.

Under the Obama administration, and - if we are to believe the sitting president - reluctantly under the present one too, Kurds have enjoyed a degree of support towards the United States plan to partition Syria.

The rise of anti-war Republicans is a relatively new phenomenon, something which came to be broadly known to the public and outside of its own previously insular sphere, through the campaign of former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul in 2012 - a strong libertarian figure whose anti-war position was prescient and based in integrity, and whose campaign was frustrated by the neo-conservative establishment running the Republican Party.

This is far from a mere distraction, and has a far deeper meaning, motivation, and possible outcome.

At least two times during President Trumps presidency, he has announced some curtailment of the United States efforts in Syria, declaring that the United States had succeeded in defeating the real threat of ISIS.

This threat of ISIS, incidentally, was the stated aim of the United States involvement in Syria under the Obama administration.

It was only after a few years by way of the slippery-slope of mission creep that this involvement began to openly declare the overthrow of the decidedly anti-terrorist administration of Bashar al-Assad as its "real" primary aim.

President Trumps move to "declare victory and go home", a declaration that was in reality made possible by the Russian aerial campaign, was nevertheless met with some significant push-back.

And this push-back, both times, came in the form of moves from House Democrats to start impeachment proceedings.

These calls for impeachment, for various and apparently random "whatevers", all long before the final findings of Mr. Mueller which seem to have exonerated Donald Trump, had their intended effect.

Yes, both times President Trump was forced to continue the United States misadventure in Syria, and after he reversed his de facto position on the matter, both times indeed, impeachment proceedings magically disappeared.

To wit, after the 2017 Shayrat missile strike which President Trump ordered to ward of impeachment threats, the infamously anti-Trump CNN declared that President Trump was finally acting like a real United States president [Insert wise comment here that in the United States of America, being presidential has to involve bombing people or things in the eyes of liberal establishment media].

President Trump does not forget those times he had his nose rubbed in it, as Democrats threatened to work with never-Trump Republicans in the pockets of AIPAC and the Military Industrial Complex, and the so-called intelligence community [something something deep state ], to frustrate his proposed policy changes.

Along with appeasing these directly through his de-facto reversal on Syria withdrawal, he ramped up sanctions on Iran to appease AIPAC and even moved to out-do his predecessor on military funding - all within a geopolitical environment that sees President Trump calling on European partners to "finally" do their part to finance NATO.

Now, we suppose we are just going to have to wait for the "allegations" that President Trump worked hand in hand with a foreign government - not Russia, not Ukraine - but rather this time Turkey, to coordinate their attack on the YPG to time nicely with President Trumps strategy to frustrate calls to impeach him.

Maybe President Trumps opponents will go so far as to claim that his push to expand NATOs presence in Greece was timed precisely to get Mr. Erdogans attention to make the Turkish move against the YPG here and now.

That means we should be on the look-out for transcripts of "Trump-Erdogan conversations", and more "insider leaks" from "whistleblowing" darlings of the deep-state.

As Matt Taibi wrote in Rolling Stone, the real whistleblowers like Ms Manning and Mr. Assange, wind up persecuted, tortured, imprisoned.

The Ukraine "whistleblower", he astutely observes "is not a real whistleblower".

Others less known wind up black-listed, permanently unemployed, doxed, and so it goes.

But if President Trump is anything, he is a man with a larger-than-life ego, but more than that he is underestimated as an intelligent and strategic thinker, and moreover, doubly excels at symbolic messaging.

If his opponents really imbibe the propaganda they put out against him, they will always be in for one surprise after another.

So if in the past, impeachment was used as a reaction to his calls to end the Syrian campaign, and forced him to essentially re-think that apparently unrealized campaign promise - then now impeachment is being used against President Trump to punish him for his moves to drain the swamp in Ukraine.

Yes, a swamp filled by Victoria Nuland with over $5 bln dollars, Mr. Bidens son Hunters unexplainable and magical seat upon the Ukrainian natural gas concern, Burisma, and the blood of the thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians killed by the President Obama installed Kiev Junta in its ethnic cleansing operation in the former eastern regions of Ukraine.

With impeachment being used as a Democratic Party campaign-immunity ploy to perhaps elect or, why not, just install Mr. Biden, then what is President Trumps interest on holding back on his peace plan for Syria?

Surely this makes sense for Democrats as neither Mr. Pence nor any other Republican has either any appeal against just about any Democrat including Mr. Biden.

But Democrats did not plan that President Trump would use something perceived as a weakness, a point of capitulation, as a bargaining chip, a card, a strength.

Just think of how President Trump could map his options and possible outcomes out on a semiotic flow chart, and create multiple contingency plans.

This has the look and feel of a well-planned maneuver, one that Donald Trump will emerge the stronger from.

In many ways it all begs the question, why do his opponents continually fall into his traps?

Maybe this is what happens when Democratic Party strategic decisions are made by committee, by lobbyists, by pollsters interpreting the pseudo-data from their own convoluted push-polls.

Maybe this is what happens when people really start to believe the hype they created about their opponent.

President Trumps team has counted the votes against him in the House and Senate - and guess what?

These probably include the same never-Trump Republicans that lined up against him previously over his failed attempts in the past to wind down Syria.

So what motive would President Trump have now to keep these same war-hawks happy about Syria?

He can only use Syria to his advantage here and now.

And keeping it real, President Trump is interested primarily now in his re-election, and being able to implement whatever he can manage in his second term - but he has to get there first.

All in all, this means that rather than Syria being used against him under threat of impeachment, President Trump can use Syria withdrawal threats to get those never-Trump Republicans to get back in line - yes, a little party discipline and solidarity.

President Trump has had to let go on Syria a few times, and for all we know it was always set up as one of those cards he could play to survive.

Maintaining a presence in Syria lines up generally with his policy against Iran, but claiming that he is against such a presence allows him to play that card when it is needed.

Conclusion

And on Donald Trumps end? He has a win-win.

If Democrats buckle on impeachment, he wins big.

If they do not buckle and take impeachment a far as it can go, and prolong the process through the election, they await Chief Justice Roberts jurisprudence and Senate Republicans, taken together, does not look good.

If Trump can, as he likely will, use that to his advantage, he wins some and loses some, it will mean some recalibrating on swing states.

If Democrats do not buckle and Donald Trump can continue to make big news on ending United States presence in Syria, he might make more moves against United States presence in Syria, like at Al-Tanf, and all together win even more points with anti-war Republicans, and even Democrats who voted Donald Trump on issues including the employment economy as well as foreign wars.

Swing states and that 1%, there we go again, Democrats so anti-war and suspicious of Chinas relationship to the bleak United States employment reality, that they voted Donald Trump.

And anti-war Republicans themselves are not some small grouping.

Overall, as the American Conservative put it together based on polling done by Politico, "President Trumps December announcement that he would withdraw United States troops from Syria, polling data from Morning Consult-Politico shows that 49 percent of United States of Americans support the decision while 33 percent oppose it."

The same article goes on to quote the [in other cases very unreliable] Glenn Greenwald of the [limited hangout] Intercept - " DonaldTrump voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent."

And, by the way, this also helps make it clearer why the DNC made a full reversal on Tulsi Gabbards ejection from the race for the nomination - they need to keep that segment of the "audience" engaged until future notice, especially if Donald Trump can angle to keep ahold of Democrats and Republicans who value foreign policy and war above most anything else.

Now Tulsis magical reappearance in next weeks 4th debate, after missing the 3rd, makes a lot more sense.

She previously showed she had a game-mind when she strategically attacked Ms Harris attack on Mr. Bidens alleged racism - showing that she could win support from [white] United States of Americans fed up with being accused of such, and that she understood that Mr. Biden was the DNC darling, making her defense of him a clear indicator what they could use her in the debates later on, a brilliant insurance policy on the part of Tulsi.

If Dems do not drop impeachment then he scores high in those above broken-down demographics, and likely score big enough to reverse the damage done by any impeachment proceedings that threaten his re-election, as they ultimately fail anyhow at the process level.

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