A quick translation of the encounter between @TulsiGabbard and Bashar al-Assad in the @AlakhbarNews story today: https://t.co/YvAYlKMw30 pic.twitter.com/aUyqStG9Z6

— Elias Muhanna (@QifaNabki) April 3, 2017

Gabbard has the stench of useful idiot about her, and this would further suggest that Trump is pushing Putin’s policies, not ours.

Syria has been a shit show since the civil war erupted. Assad is awful, but any assistance to the rebels would aid IS. Attacking Assad means IS benefits. Attacking IS and the rebels aids Assad who has been repeatedly engaging in war crimes.

Russia backs Assad as a client state (hey, they gotta sell weapons to someone). Iran backs Assad too, though that support is frayed a bit because Hizbullah doesn’t particularly care to keep losing resources in a civil war when it could be better spending its time prepping for conflict with Israel (and any lessons learned in a Syrian civil war will benefit Hizbullah too). Iran can’t keep pouring resources into Syria either, not with oil prices being what it is.

Obama tried threading a line between all these awful options to find the least bad one, and now it appears Trump’s willing to push towards a new direction.

It has the stench of Putin all over it.