Trump Needs More Than 100 Days on Syria

Posted: April 28th, 2017

By Barak Barfi

Barak Barfi is a research fellow at New America, where he specializes in Arab and Islamic Affairs. Previously, Barak was a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, Foreign Policy, Daily Beast, the Atlantic and the New Republic, in addition to being regularly featured in Project Syndicate. He has also extensively published in leading foreign publications such as Australia's The Australian, Austria's Der Standard, England's The Guardian, Germany's Die Welt and Spain's El Pais. Barak has published several monographs and encyclopedia articles on topics such as al-Qaeda, Libya and Yemen. Barak frequently testifies before Congress on issues ranging from al-Qaeda to the Syrian conflict. Before entering the think tank world, Barak worked as a correspondent for Associated Press and as a producer for ABC News affiliates where he reported from countries such as Iraq and Lebanon. He has lived in half a dozen Middle East countries including Libya and Yemen. Barak did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan and his graduate studies at Columbia University. He is fluent in Arabic and French and proficient in German.

When Yitzhak Rabin met with President Gerald Ford on his first visit to Washington as Israel’s Prime Minister in 1974, he sought to cash in on Ford’s earlier promise to him that he would move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem if he ever became president. Ford remembered the vow he made as a member of Congress. Nevertheless, he said, “life looks different from the Oval Office.”

This is a lesson that President Donald Trump is slowly grasping. The businessman who campaigned as an isolationist “America First” candidate is inching toward a realist foreign policy on issues ranging from North Korean nukes to engaging China. Nowhere is this change more apparent than with his Administration’s Syria policy. Trump has grudgingly come around to the realization that vague campaign promises lacking serious deliberation are not enough to grapple with the Gordian knot the country represents.

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