President-elect Donald Trump has declared that on his watch the United States will stop supporting ISIS and militant opposition groups in Syria.
Instead the U.S. will work with Russia and the Syrian government to defeat ISIS and the terrorist organizations attempting to overthrow Assad’s government.
Trump stated that while he “did not like [Mr Assad] at all”, he respects Syria’s sovereignty and believes the U.S. has no place providing assistance to Islamic terrorists attempting to overthrow a foreign government.
“I’ve had an opposite view of many people regarding Syria. My attitude was you’re fighting Syria, Syria is fighting Isis, and you have to get rid of Isis,” he said on Friday.
The president-elect believes shoring up Assad’s Syrian government is the best way to stop the Islamic extremism that has flourished in the chaos of the civil war and threatened Western countries.
“Russia is now totally aligned with Syria, and now you have Iran, which is becoming powerful, because of us, is aligned with Syria… Now we’re backing rebels against Syria, and we have no idea who those people are,” he told the Wall Street Journal, referring to the hardline Islamic terrorists that make up the opposition ranks. If the U.S. continues to attack Assad, “We end up fighting Russia,” he added.
To date the U.S. has supported rebels in Syria both logistically and financially, along with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar – two states revealed to be supporting ISIS by WikiLeaks emails sent by Hillary Clinton to John Podesta.
Trump believes that rather than playing a risky game using Islamic militants as proxy soldiers in order to overthrow a foreign regime, the United States should instead focus on ridding the world of ISIS.