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Quick Analysis

Foreign Policy Update

SYRIA

On Friday, February 14, 2020, a senior State Department official provided the media with background information on the Administration’s Middle East efforts in Syria. He said that it is a two-fold process. First, the US is trying to shore up the international community to stand against the latest aggression and recent military actions which have created a humanitarian crisis in the area with 3 million people crossing into Turkey to escape the fighting. The official pointed out that Turkey already has absorbed 3.5 million. Second, is the problem the world has with Syrian President Assad. People flee Assad and Syria and go to ISIS rather than suffer under his regime, according to the official. “…we’re working with the Turks to see how the rest of the international community can support a ceasefire under 2254, the relevant UN resolution, in all of Syria, which is what the resolution calls for, but beginning with Idlib. Idlib is at a critical point right now, he added.

“It’s a set of salami tactics on the part of the Syrians…and the Russians,” according to the official. He said that they did under the Astana Process. Russia, Iran, and Turkey force the fights around Damascus, in Aleppo, and Idlib, although Assad’s infantry is not good and doesn’t like fighting. The result is ceasefire after ceasefire, and settlements that are filled with displaced people who don’t want to live under an Assad regime. The official pointed out that this has been going on for three years and the only place left for them to escape now it to Idlib. “So,” he added, “it is jam-packed with tens of thousands of fighters, many tens of thousands of fighters, and some 3.5 million people.” The US is working on targeting the Assad regime with military, political and economic pressure and sanctions, which it hopes will quiet the situation and lead to a more stable environment in the region. The official pointed out that it is getting to the point where Europe will no longer be able to avoid dealing with the Syrian issue as the refugee crisis is growing daily.

ISRAEL

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo is shocked and “outraged” upon learning that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet published a database of companies operating in Israeli-controlled territories.  He said that the United States has long opposed the creation or release of this database, which was mandated by the discredited UN Human Rights Council in 2016. 

“Its publication,” he added, “only confirms the unrelenting anti-Israel bias so prevalent at the United Nations. The United States has not provided, and will never provide, any information to the Office of the High Commissioner to support compilation of these lists and expresses support for U.S. companies referenced.” The US is calling upon all UN member states to join Washington in rejecting the effort as Pompeo says it “facilitates the discriminatory boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) campaign and delegitimizes Israel.” Attempts to isolate Israel run counter to American efforts to build conditions conducive to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that can lead to a comprehensive and enduring peace, he said. 

CHINA

The Trump Administration remains extremely concerned about Chinese technology theft and its implications for American national security. This week the US Government charged the Chinese company, Huawei, with numerous counts of racketeering and charges of conspiracy to steal US trade secrets as part of a broader effort that President Trump has directed the United States to undertake. “Whether it’s the risk of Chinese technology in our systems, which would give a key way for the Chinese Communist Party to have access to the most intimate information of American citizens – we’ve gone around the world telling other countries they need to be careful about that too, or to your point about how the Chinese are using financial power to leverage into political control and influence in countries around the world, we can see this now,” he said. It is now a bipartisan effort which did not occur much in the last 10 or 15 years, he pointed out.

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President Trump, said Pompeo, “…has made clear we want fairness, we want transparency, we want a relationship with China that is balanced and equal, and on a commercial basis, we want those transactions to be things that make sense for the American people. Our first and foremost duty is just keep the American people safe and create economic prosperity at home. You can’t have that when the Chinese Communist Party is stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of our most important technology and intellectual property.”

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay