Tel-Chai Nation

Many no doubt were disturbed when Emmanuel Macron met with Ahmed al-Sharaa recently. But now, Donald Trump has caused more damage to the ability to deal properly with Islamic terrorism in Syria - and anti-Christian persecution occurring there - as he was willing to meet with al-Sharaa and even lift sanctions against Syria:

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of the jihadist terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), praised President Donald Trump in an address on Wednesday for taking the “courageous and historic” step of lifting sanctions on his country.

Sharaa delivered a speech to the Syrian people following an in-person meeting with President Trump in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where President Trump concluded the first of three stops in a Middle East tour on Wednesday. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who first met Sharaa shortly after HTS toppled the half-century-old Assad family regime in Damascus, arranged and presided over the meeting.

The event was the first time in 25 years an American president had met a Syrian head of state.

President Trump announced that he would lift sanctions on Syria on Tuesday before the meeting. He reinforced his commitment to the decision in remarks to reporters following his meeting with Sharaa, who he called “pretty amazing.”

Syria is currently on the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism and the subject of extensive, onerous sanctions. All stem from the behavior of former dictator Bashar Assad, who allied himself closely with Iran and its entire terrorist proxy network and, throughout over a decade of civil war, committed a host of atrocities against his own people. HTS, the al-Qaeda offshoot Sharaa led under the alias Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, overthrew the Assad regime in December, sending the dictator fleeing to his patrons in Moscow.

As one of several factions actively combatting the Assad regime, HTS made a longstanding enemy of Iran and the Shiite terrorist axis and did not participate in the Assad regime’s crimes – though it engaged in its own atrocities, particularly against groups that Assad did not persecute, such as Christians and Alawite Shiites. HTS massacres of Alawites have been documented to have occurred as recently as this March; Sharaa has attempted to distance himself from the violence.

Seriously, this causes terrible damage to the cause of Christians who fell victim to horrific crimes of jihadists in the area, and the whole notion al-Sharaa had nothing to do with it is naive. It's regrettable Trump is doing this, no matter what for.

A similar concern could be raised about whether Trump intends to meet with Vladimir Putin:

President Donald Trump said Friday that he would like to set up a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin “as soon” as possible.

Trump made the comments in Abu Dhabi as he prepared to return home to the United States at the end of his Middle East tour. He had previously floated a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin in Turkey, but the Russian president refused to attend.

“They all said Putin was going and Zelensky was going. And I said, If I don’t go, I guarantee Putin is not going, and he didn’t go,” Trump said. “And I understand that, but we’re going to get it we’re going to get it done. We’ve got to get it done. Five thousand young people are being killed every single week on average, and we’re going to get it done.”

While Ukrainian and Russian officials are meeting in Turkey on Friday, Trump said he believed he would have to meet with Putin to make real progress toward ending the war.

And this meeting between Putin and Zelensky is being conducted in equally bad territory, Turkey? Well that's got to be telling too in its own way. No matter how one looks at this, what's regrettable here is the whole notion Putin cannot be brought down in any way, even though he's the one who began all this, not to mention that he still acts as an autocrat. And meeting in Turkey is not improving the situation either.

Labels: anti-americanism, anti-semitism, Christianity, dhimmitude, House of Saud, islam, Israel, jihad, military, misogyny, racism, Russia, sexual violence, State Dept, syria, terrorism, turkey, UAE, United States, White House