Dem
47
GOP
53
Events are moving so fast in the Middle East that whatever anyone writes today could be obsolete by tomorrow. Is the new sheriff in town in Damascus Taliban-lite or a reformer? Is Iran going to lick its wounds and be quiet for a while? Vladimir Putin supported Bashar al-Assad for a decade. Assad lost and had to flee to Moscow over the weekend. He looks like a loser. Donald Trump does not like losers.
Until Jan. 20, the one-president-at-a-time rule says that Joe Biden still gets to call the shots on U.S. policy in the Middle East. Biden is cautiously optimistic about Syria, but also warned about the new leaders: "They're saying the right things now. But as they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words, but their actions."
Trump's comment about Syria on his boutique social media site was: "THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED." In any event, by Jan. 20, things could be clearer there, so there is no need for Trump to stick his neck out right now. He can wait to see how it develops. His long-time preference is to stay out of other folks' wars and that could be his first inclination now. He could also just leave matters to Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio. In short, things are very unstable and make long-term predictions, say, for Wednesday, quite premature.
On the ground, things have changed. Iran no longer has a land route to ship weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and after the beating it got from Israel, is no longer the force it was. That alone could be significant. More is likely to change before Jan. 20. (V)