Peloni: Amb Barrak: “Strong nation states are a threat – especially Arab states are viewed as a threat to Israel,…I think all of the minority communities are smart enough to say, we’re better off together, centralized.”
Is Barrak intending this statement to include the Druze minority which just suffered being slaughtered by Jihadists, the same Jihadists which Jolani described as being “Syrian heroes”???
Meanwhile US citizens are among those being slaughtered by those Syrian heroes, “Folks I am going to save you the graphic and gruesome video of the murder the American Druze in Syria”
Doubling down on this policy of a centralized power under Jolani will not bode well for the future regional stability, any more than it has for the Druze community over this past week, so Plan B would seem to already be in place by the Jihadists on which Amb. Barrak is doubling down his suspport.
Truce in Syrian Druze areas holds, Bedouin civilians evacuate from Suwayda
Tom Barrack met with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Syria in May 2025. Photo by Ambassador Tom Barrack – X, Public Domain, Wikipedia)
Washington sees no alternative to continue working together with the Syrian government that is dominated by former members of Islamist terror groups, Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria and Lebanon, said in Beirut on Monday.
Speaking with the Associated Press, he said there was “no Plan B” to working with President Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known and wanted as Mohammed al-Jolani, in an effort to restore stability in Syria.
Barrack also doubled down on U.S. criticism of Israel’s strikes in southern Syria, which targeted government troops to stop attacks on the majority-Druze province of Suwayda (Suweida).
After over a week of fighting that saw the deaths of over 1,100 people, including hundreds of Druze civilians who were executed by government-affiliated troops, the ceasefire mediated by the U.S. and declared last weekend appeared to be holding.
Regarding Israel’s strikes, Barrack said that “The U.S. was not asked, nor did they participate in that decision, nor was it the U.S.’s responsibility in matters that Israel feels is for its own self-defense.”
However, he added that the Israeli intervention “creates another very confusing chapter” and “came at a very bad time.”
Last week, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce had said that the U.S. didn’t support the strikes, adding, “We’ve been very clear about our displeasure, certainly that the president has, and we’ve worked very quickly to have it stopped.”
According to AP, the Israeli strikes drew complaints to the White House by Barrack, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, as well as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both of which have vocally supported al-Sharaa’s new regime.
Barrack also appeared to suggest that Israel’s goal is to keep Syria fragmented, which would directly contravene the U.S. policies in the country.
“Strong nation states are a threat – especially Arab states are viewed as a threat to Israel,” he said. But in Syria, he said, “I think all of the minority communities are smart enough to say, we’re better off together, centralized.”
Israeli officials have not pushed back publicly on the U.S. criticism. However, Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X that “Those who criticize the attacks are not well-versed in the facts,” without naming who he meant.
“Israel’s attacks on regime targets in Suweida and Damascus were the only way to stop the massacre of Druze in Syria, the brothers of our Druze brothers in Israel,” he wrote.
“The government’s policy in Syria, including the presence of the IDF in Hermon and the security zone and the protection of the Druze, is correct and responsible, reflecting strength and mutual responsibility.
Barrack called the “killing, the revenge, the massacres on both sides” intolerable, but added “the current government of Syria, in my opinion, has conducted themselves as best they can as a nascent government with very few resources to address the multiplicity of issues that arise in trying to bring a diverse society together.”
Nevertheless, he also said at a later news conference that “there is a Syrian government in place that must be held accountable and bear its responsibilities.”
Despite ostensibly being sent to restore order in Suwayda, government troops were reported to have joined the fighting on the side of the Bedouin tribesmen and went on to commit atrocities against Druze civilians.
Meanwhile, the tension on the ground in southern Syria is slowly dissipating as the ceasefire continues to hold.
Reuters reported Monday that hundreds of Bedouin civilians are being evacuated from the majority-Druze town of Suwayda after Druze militias had attacked Bedouin neighborhoods and villages in the area during the fighting.
While most reports of atrocities indicated that the perpetrators were either Bedouin tribesmen or government-affiliated Islamist gunmen, Reuters quoted Bedouin civilians who claimed there had also been killings of civilians by Druze militias.
Around 1,500 Bedouin civilians are set to be evacuated from the area and will be received in temporary displacement camps in nearby majority-Sunni areas.
In the next step, Bedouins detained by Druze militias and bodies of Bedouins killed in the fighting will be transferred.
According to the United Nations, at least 93,000 people, most of them Druze, were displaced by the fighting.
This guy doesn’t have a humanitarian bone in his body.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Barrack
David Wurmser:
The problem being addressed in the article is that all these “friendly” nations feel that Israel has done something wrong because they are standing up for the Druze and other minorities. If Israel had done nothing, like all those complaining, the Druze would have been annihilated by now.
The Druze serving in the IDF would probably have deserted.
Israel has done the right thing and should ignore all these dissenting voices from the cheap places at the back of the audience.
As mentioned above, nobody else stepped up to help these minorities and they should all be ashamed of themselves.
@dreuveni, I agree with you completely.
President Trump is carrying out a pro-jihadi policy. There is no way to spin what Barrack is saying as pro-Israel. Almost all of the choices Trump has made this term place his policy in the pro-jihadi camp.
I watched a White House discussion between Bibi and Trump and was dismayed to see Trump communicating both verbally and non-verbally in a cold way. While Bibi was stressing positive things about Trump’s support for Israel, Trump mentioned that he has a good relationship with President Erdogan.
I was reminded of Mike Doran’s belief that support for Turkey is somehow a good thing, something he didn’t substantiate with any evidence, and at the time I wondered if Doran simply had his finger on the pulse of what Trump is going for.
Trump appears to be aiming at “peace” at any price which is similar to “war” at any price, if the price is a lot of dead people.
I say this because it is not just his rolling out the red carpet for countries supportive of and funders for Muslim terrorism, but he is doing something similar regarding the conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia over the water supply. I do not know all the details, but Andrew Korybko wrote about this in the past week, that Trump appears to be supporting Egypt in the conflict:
“Siding with Egypt signals support for its next proxy war on Ethiopia that could destabilize key US allies.
“Trump scandalously predicted during his first term that Egypt might bomb the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) so it wasn’t surprising that he brought those two’s dispute several time this year so far. The first was during his call with Sisi in February, he then posted on social media about it twice over the summer, and he finally mentioned it again during his meeting with NATO chief Rutte. Each time he described it as a regional problem that the US is helping to resolve in order to avert war.
“His framing of that aforesaid problem, especially in his latest remarks where he lent credence to Egypt’s discredited fearmongering that GERD’s completion would cut off the Nile’s flow if its construction didn’t do so already, raise questions about his understanding of this dispute at the very least. GERD’s purpose is to help fully electrify what’s the second most populous country in Africa at around 130 million people and its fastest-growing economy, not blackmail Egypt for unknown reasons like Cairo speculates.”
I see the Trump Administration making great headway with declassification of documentary evidence of major crimes including treason for Obama and his associates, and Trump is also making very positive changes to the US economy which will lead to prosperity and a much sounder economic base in the future. He is also actively working to undue the damage of open borders and massive illegal immigration caused by the “Open Society” policies of the Obama/Biden administration. All of this is good and appropriate, and is much, much more than almost all prior presidents have done for this country.
However it is on the foreign policy front that I have a lot of questions because Trump is pursuing policies that are diametrically opposite from what he ran on. He ran on being tough on Iran (He did not run on saving the Ayatollahs), he ran on being maximally supportive of Israel, (he did not run on pressuring Israel to negotiate with the mass murderers who committed genocide against her) and he ran on ending the war in Ukraine on his first day in office, whereas now he is committing the US to sending outdated US weapons to NATO, which is the same as sending them to Ukraine. So what gives, Mr. President? Is this 5D chess and that is why it seems so unfathomable to mere mortals like me?
I hope there is something unknown to all of us that is a potentially very positive reason for Trump to be taking what has been the CIA’s long running covert policy in the Middle East and in Ukraine.
Hope dies last.
Atrocities Against Druze are the Same as October 7
https://open.substack.com/pub/lel817/p/atrocities-against-druze-are-the?r=1q2uiq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Another Blood libel debunked
https://open.substack.com/pub/lel817/p/another-blood-libel-debunked?r=1q2uiq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Peloni
The way you write this stuff is convoluted
At a time when the simplest concepts must be spelled out black and white
EXAMPLE
Israel and it’s wonderful IDF came to the assistance of the million strong minority Druze against our common enemy
Also to defend the Christian minority
Also to defend the Alawites
Mr President Trump please tell the world What IS THE PROBLEM
Why attack is?
@fquigley
Well, thanks for reading it and offering your thoughts.
Felix: I also like your way of thinking; simple and direct.
I don’t know where “the Administration” found these various people, but it sounds to me that they have no spine, nor the ability to think critically.
Saving the lives of our dedicated allies sounds like a very good idea…
@Felix Because it interferes with Trump’s counter/equivalent of China’s Belt and Road Plan though he seems to be having second thoughts. Tragically belated second thoughts.