President Trump defies his own hawkish administration, refuses new sanctions against Russia

President Donald Trump has made a new move, which is simply NOT to move in pressing new sanctions against the Russian Federation in regards to their support of the Syrian regime under President Bashar al-Assad. This move came as a surprise, because only hours before the US envoy to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, was presenting the move for such new and severe sanctions against Russia.

Sputnik News reports that White House Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders announced that the imposition of new sanctions was being placed on hold.

This naturally produced a media firestorm.

The reasoning expressed by the administration was simple enough – “We will impose sanctions if Russia makes another bad move. But for now, we will wait and see.”

According to Sputnik News.com,

Donald Trump has [given the order] to postpone the introduction of new sanctions after a comprehensive discussion with his aides. 

The future punitive measures against Moscow were announced by US envoy to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Sunday, who said Washington was readying to sanction Moscow for supporting the Syrian government. 

She said that the restrictions would hit the companies that are allegedly “dealing with equipment related to Assad and any chemical weapons use.”

According to sources, Trump was “upset” that the sanctions were presented, as he “was not yet comfortable executing them.”

One can expect that CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post will never, ever, officially take President Trump’s side on anything. If any staffer or anchor does, they will be slapped down and put in place immediately. We have already seen this.

When it comes to dealing with all things Russia, then the ridiculous narrative of “collusion with the Russians” is a handy device to try to inject into the news to prevent President Trump from actually doing anything that would LOOK like he was acting like President Putin’s puppet.

On CNN and the pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, the news of the hesitation of imposing new sanctions became fodder for a surprisingly hawkish liberal media establishment. Again, the issue is not about ideology any more deeply than “Stop Trump” at any point possible, by any means possible.

CNN headlined the Washington Post piece: “WaPo: Trump hasn’t signed off on Russia sanctions Haley announced”

The New York Times offered this headline: Trump Declines to Add Sanctions Against Russians, Contradicting Haley

And what an interesting bit of hypocrisy was presented here. Nikki Haley is hated on the Left as a super-hawkish person. She even makes conservatives a bit uncomfortable at times because she seems to be in the UN to tell everyone how the USA is going to kick everyone’s tail unless they buckle down and behave like good little American puppets.

And yet the Big Three lib mouthpieces are faulting Trump for not following his UN envoy’s lead? 

When the Syrian airstrikes took place, the mood among the hawkish people was very positive, but the actual number of hawkish people seemed to be few in the USA, because no one who is thinking clearly really wants to chance a war with Russia, and further, many very thoughtful people – including those in the media like Tucker Carlson, Michael Savage and Laura Ingraham, also have taken note of the fact that Syria itself does not present any threat to American national security, and there is literally no reason we should be there.

The hawkish argument that the reason to strike alleged chemical weapons facilities is to keep our troops there out of harm’s way is nullified by the simple fact that the American presence in Syria is illegal in the first place. No one invited us, and our troops, gallant as they are, are trying to enact what is only to be seen as bad policy on the part of their commanders. If we had no troops on the ground there, there would be no threat at all to American interests. 

Argument that posits Iran gaining power in the region are equally baseless. Iran delivers a lot of anti-Israel rhetoric, but they never do anything to Israel, and Iran has long been allied with Syria. Since Russia also maintains cordial relations with Israel, it is unlikely that Iran would take a chance at aggravating its major ally.

For the United States mainstream news media community, then, the rule of the day is unchanged:

Politics overrule Policy. 

However, the actual move by Mr. Trump to at least hesitate on sanctions, is a very wise decision. The very things that the MSM try to criticize the President for – the unwillingness to castigate Russia and the hope to reconcile the relationship between the two nations – is cause for hope. Russia has simply never been an enemy power in any of this. The hawks in America – some of whom evidently have a lot of power – refuse to see this. But it is nonetheless true, and this latest move by the President shows that he seems to see this as a way forward instead of the SOP of setting up a straw enemy to wage a fictitious fight against.

Only time will tell.