Syria's time in the wilderness ends as many Arab states send representatives to meet with Assad.

 

Bashar al-Assad meets with members of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union. Al-Jazeera/Reuters.

Relations between Syria and other Arab states is warming as Assad meets with delegations across the Arab world. Al-Jazeera. Delegates from Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Libya, the UAE, Oman and Lebanon met with Bashar al-Assad. Assad has been isolated from other Arab countries since the 2011 crackdown on protests that led to the Syrian Civil War. However, the recent earthquakes that devastated Syria and Turkey have led to a large number of donations from foreign governments and a warming of relations between Syria and the rest of the Arab world. Even Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which supported rebels during the war, have sent assistance. Assad has also had high level meetings with Egyptian and Jordan, and has visited Oman and the UAE. 

My Comment:

This is a fairly important development and it is one that is being ignored by western press. Syria normalizing relations with its neighbors is a big deal and one that could eventually lead to the end of the Syrian Civil War. It's a fairly large diplomatic coup that Syria has pulled off here. 

To be fair, much of the reason is because of the massive earthquakes. Though the damage to Turkey got most of the press, Syria also had major damage to their country. And much of that damage was done to areas that were already devastated by the civil war. It really was a humanitarian nightmare so it is no surprise that the Arab world is stepping up to help. 

More importantly it shows that American influence is fading fast in the Arab world. Most of the Arab world hates Joe Biden, with the Saudis especially sick and tired of the man after his poor treatment of the country. Under Trump and Obama, I can't imagine these Arab governments infuriating America like this, but nobody cares anymore under Biden.  

It really shows that the Syria adventure was a total failure for the United States. The goal was to remove Bashar al-Assad and it failed, miserably. Assad isn't going anywhere, the rebel groups are gone and it's pretty clear that nothing much is going to change. And a whole lot of people died in Syria for little reason. 

And that's to say nothing of the blowback we experienced for the Arab Spring. The Syrian civil war spawned ISIS, which still lingers on to this day. Though nowhere near their peak, the terror group is still a thread. And it's important to remember just how bad things were with ISIS just a few years ago. They had taken over most of Iraq, Syria and Libya and had outposts in Afghanistan and Egypt. And they committed countless terror attacks across the world.  

What is really infuriating is not only did our Syria adventure fail, it's not even on the radar anymore. We still have troops there, which would come as a surprise if you only paid attention to what Joe Biden says. Our foreign policy is focused on Ukraine and nothing else. Sometimes it makes the news when there is an attack on one of our bases or there are airstrikes but nothing much else. Indeed, most people aren't even going to know that Syria is normalizing relations with its neighbors...