( CNN) President Donald Trump has just given Russia what he might call a “beautiful” gift. According to the Washington Post, Trump has decided to dismantle a US program that was arming and training some of the rebels fighting the Syrian despot, President Bashar al-Assad. When asked about the report, the White House and the CIA declined to comment.
The decision awards Vladimir Putin one of his long-sought changes to US policy in the Middle East, and it does it in exchange — as far as we can tell — for nothing at all.
The end of the US-backed push against Assad is not just a gift to Russia and to the Syrian chairperson — it is also a phase on the scoreboard for his ambitious friends, the Iranian regime and its Lebanese catspaw, Hezbollah.
