By Willis Krumholz
Looming over this month’s big NATO confab was not only Donald Trump’s repeated insistence that its signatories contribute more to their own defense, but an ongoing discussion over America’s persistent role in the Middle East.
This was telegraphed recently at the Manama Dialogue confab in Bahrain—a get-together involving the Sunni powers in the Gulf region—where French Defense Minister Florence Parly slammed the Trump administration for moving troops out of northern Syria and for pulling out of the Iran deal. She said America wasn’t doing enough to stand up to Iran’s threats to Saudi Arabia, and that Barack Obama should have launched a military strike against the Assad regime after chemical weapons were used in 2013.
“We’ve seen deliberate, gradual U.S. disengagement,” said Parly. “The edifice [of American power] has started shaking and opportunists rush in.”
This piece was originally published by The American Conservative on December 17, 2019. Read more HERE.