The U.S. should not be in the middle of the Syrian civil war and should instead "just let it play out," as President-elect Donald Trump suggested, former Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland told Newsmax on Monday.
McFarland, who served in the first Trump administration, made the comments after the Biden administration hit Islamic State forces inside Syria over the weekend following the collapse of the Assad regime, with the White House explaining it did so to make sure ISIS doesn't take advantage of the vacuum of power.
McFarland emphasized to "Wake Up America" that the U.S. "should not try to influence this group or that group. Let it play out. We should not be involved in anybody's civil war, particularly a multisided civil war."
She stressed that the fall of President Bashar al-Assad is "an enormous possibility for peace in the Middle East, but its also a great danger for more war in the Middle East," explaining that "the one thing we learned from the Arab Spring is that there is one thing worse than oppressive dictators, and that's total chaos."
McFarland pointed out that "the difference this time around ... is President Trump. He has shown that he is a deal guy. He's shown [that] with the Abraham Accords ... and that deal did not collapse once the Oct. 7 attacks happen. ... It stayed. The Saudis will probably soon join and then you have got an Iran that is isolated."
McFarland added that Trump "had Iran right where he wanted them at the end of his first term. Iran was broke because of the Trump sanctions. The Iranians couldn't sell their oil and because of the low oil prices, thanks to Trump's energy polices, even what they could sell was not worth much."
She went on to contend that this meant Iran was "on the ropes. They had to worry more about their own people than they did about spreading revolution. We could be in a situation like that, and what better president to do yet another peace deal in the Middle East than Donald Trump."
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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