“Hope and Change” becomes “Trust but Verify” ..
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“Trump’s win may have already shifted the course of the Russian-backed military campaign in Aleppo. A senior pro-Assad official told Reuters that plans to capture the rebel-held east by January were shaped around an assumption Clinton would win.”
“Trump has struck a different tone to current U.S. policy on some aspects of the multi-sided Syrian conflict, where the United States with allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia has backed some of the insurgents who have been fighting to topple Assad for more than five years.”
“Trump has questioned the wisdom of backing rebels, played down the U.S. goal of getting Assad to leave power, and noted that while he didn’t like him, “Assad is killing ISIS” with Iran and Russia. ISIS is an acronym for Islamic State.”
“The war has shattered Syria into a patchwork of areas controlled by Assad’s state, rebels battling to topple him, a powerful Kurdish militia, and the Islamic State group. It has killed hundreds of thousands of people, and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.”
“Russian President Vladimir Putin would “certainly have a different approach towards the entire Syrian crisis based on what will happen with Trump”.”
Damascus, allies upbeat on Trump win, await his policies
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies hope to benefit from Donald Trump’s election win, believing it has saved them from the risks of an interventionist Clinton administration.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-syria-analysis-idUSKBN1360WJ