| | | | Fareed: How Trump Morphed into Obama on Syria | | President Trump was right in calling for a military strike against Syria, Fareed argued in his Take. But that shouldn't mask the fact that his administration doesn't have a broader strategy for the country – or that his Syria policy has morphed into his predecessor's.
"Trump's vacillation is simply a heightened version of the dilemma that the United States has faced from the start of the Syrian civil war. It has wanted to cheer on the forces of democracy. It has been dismayed by Assad's brutality. It has recognized the dangers of lawless areas in which Islamist radicals like ISIS can emerge. But it has never found a viable, moderate partner on the ground in Syria that was large or effective enough to have even a chance of becoming dominant militarily and politically.
"President Trump, like Obama, is wary of American involvement and yet can't completely stay away, so he has come up with a few discrete ways to use American power without actually getting much involved in the Syrian conflict." "It is a sign perhaps of America's few options that on Syria, despite his protestations and his constant digs at his predecessor, Donald Trump has morphed into Barack Obama." "To be sure, he is a monster and at some point he must go. But the West has no way to make him leave at present. That means the US and the international community need to redefine the United Nations process in Geneva, which currently seeks to create a new leadership to replace Mr. Assad. For him, that would be tantamount to conceding defeat at a moment when he feels he is winning on the battlefield," they write in the Wall Street Journal.
"For now, the Geneva talks should focus less on political transition and more on technical issues like distributing relief and reviving agriculture."
| | Why Iran Is There to Stay in Syria | | Fears that US military action could escalate tensions with Russia grabbed the pre-strike headlines. But "no country has done more, financially and militarily, to back the Bashar al-Assad regime's mass murder of Syrians than the Islamic Republic of Iran," writes Karim Sadjadpour for The Atlantic. Friday's missile strikes won't change that.
"Today the Tehran-Damascus axis has come to resemble a mutually exploitative love affair: Iran likes Syria for its body (which borders Israel and serves as Tehran's way station to Hezbollah), and Syria likes Iran for its money. In exchange for Iranian largesse, Assad has forsaken his sovereignty," writes Sadjadpour.
"After seven years, and with billions of dollars of sunk costs, an assertive Russian partner, and a US president that aspires to withdraw from the region, Tehran feels vindicated in Syria. It is alleged to be building permanent military bases outside Damascus, with armed drones capable of reaching Israel. Periodic, limited US military strikes against Assad's weapons depots are not likely to change this calculus. Hopes that Assad's mass repression or use of chemical weapons would compel Tehran to reassess its support have been proven wrong. Just as Iranians today frequently evoke how Saddam used chemical weapons against Iran over three decades ago, Syrians will have similarly long memories of Iranian complicity."
| | How Trump Could Bury Mueller Report: Sargent | | Former FBI Director James Comey's media blitz ahead of the release of his book – and his scathing criticism of President Trump -- has further ratcheted up the stakes for Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Lost in the headlines? The fact that Mueller's findings might not see the light of day, suggests Greg Sargent in the Washington Post.
"How much will we learn of what Mueller has established about Trump's misconduct, if no criminal charges are brought against the president, which remains likely? It's unclear. Under the relevant regulations, Mueller will provide a 'confidential' report explaining his conclusions to the deputy attorney general (because Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself). That person is then supposed to provide leaders of the House and Senate judiciary committees with an 'explanation' for the decision to end the probe, which he can release publicly if he chooses. This gives the deputy attorney general a great deal of discretion over how much information is included in that explanation or what the public learns," Sargent says.
"A replacement for Rosenstein could not only decline to release something publicly, but could also sharply limit how much information gets sent to Congress."
| | America's Surprising Frenemy | | Raul Castro is stepping down as Cuba's president Wednesday. The change is unlikely to usher in a Kumbaya moment between Washington and Havana. But don't be fooled – there's a lot more cooperation between the two countries than you might think, writes Mac Margolis for Bloomberg View.
"Even as public diplomacy festers, in recent months shared policy initiatives, technical cooperation pacts and binational task forces have survived and, in some cases, even strengthened."
"Cuba and the US have long coordinated to patrol the maritime borders, and dousing [a recent wildfire that threatened Guantanamo] was only possible because of two decades of joint natural disaster response drills by US troops with the Cuban military's Frontier Brigade.
"Transnational crime also has drawn the Americas' signature enemies closer. Although neither side flaunts it, Havana and Washington have collaborated for more than two decades to interdict drug shipments, human traffickers, cross-border crime cartels, money launderers, and more recently even Medicare cheats."
| | America Is Exceptional (on Taxes) | | Tuesday is Tax Day in the United States, the official deadline for Americans to file their tax returns. The United States ranked 36th on ease of paying taxes in the World Bank's most recent Doing Business index, while Fareed has noted that the US tax code is millions of words long.
But it doesn't have to be like this, T.R. Reid, author of "A Fine Mess," suggested on a recent episode of Fareed Zakaria GPS. While the average family in the United States spends about 30 hours gathering data and filling out forms, Reid says, some countries' citizens can do it in minutes.
Watch the discussion on GPS here
| | Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is scheduled to arrive in Florida on Tuesday for a meeting with President Trump. Reuters' Linda Sieg reports that the visit comes as Abe's approval numbers back home have hit new lows amid an ongoing scandal over suspected cronyism. "Speculation has even emerged that Abe…could call a snap general election as he did last October when his ratings were in a similar slump. A survey by broadcaster Nippon TV released on Sunday showed Abe's support had sunk to 26.7 percent, the lowest since he took office in December 2012."
China will host live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday for the first time since September 2015. CNN reports that the move is a clear message from Chinese President Xi Jinping "of Beijing's disapproval over growing ties between the United States and Taiwan." | | | | | | |
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