Featured image: Assad and Putin, the Khmeimim airbase, Syria, December 11, 2017 (Source: South Front)

“Despite the deaths of as many as half a million people, dozens by chemical weapons, in the Syrian civil war, the Trump Administration is now prepared to accept President Bashar al-Assad’s continued rule until Syria’s next scheduled Presidential election, in 2021, according to U.S. and European officials. The decision reverses repeated U.S. statements that Assad must step down as part of a peace process,” the New Yorker wrote in the article entitled “Trump to Let Assad Stay Until 2021, as Putin Declares Victory in Syria” on December 11.

The New Yorker says that the US administration was forced to admit that it has limited options in Syria and the influence of the Damascus government backed by Iran, Hezbollah and Russia had grown significantly. In this situation, Washington “still wants a political process that holds the prospect of Assad’s departure. But it has concluded that it may take until 2021, when the next election is scheduled, to pull it off. Depending on the outcome of the 2020 U.S. election, Assad could still be in power after Trump leaves office. U.S. officials worry that Assad could win the 2021 Syrian election, one way or the other, and remain in power for years to come.”

As ISIS’s self-proclaimed Caliphate came to its end in Syria and Iraq even the mainstream media admits that something went wrong with the US plan to overthrow Assad in Syria, which had been originally supported by Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and some other powers.

Now, when this plan is failed, Washington is in a dead end. On the one hand, it cannot officially accept Assad in power. On the other hand, he has no real options but accept Assad in power. Thus, the US will likely increase its efforts aimed at dividing of Syria through supporting the separatist intentions of the US-backed Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, which control a large part of eastern Syria. The goal of this strategy is to build a de-facto independent enclave within Syria. This enclave will be almost fully controlled by the US because without the American financial and military support it will be incapable of life.