特朗普称美国应远离叙利亚的战斗，因为反对派力量正在增强
【中美创新时报2024 年 12 月 8 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）当选总统唐纳德·特朗普周六表示，美国军方应远离叙利亚迅速升级的冲突，叙利亚叛军的猛烈攻势已到达首都，威胁到叙利亚与俄罗斯和伊朗结盟的总统的统治。特朗普在社交媒体上宣称：“这不是我们的战斗。”美联社记者埃伦·尼克迈耶、威尔·韦塞特和塔拉·科普对此作了下述报道。
当世界各国领导人目睹叛军的惊人进展，并有可能改变中东的力量平衡时，乔·拜登总统的国家安全顾问则强调拜登政府无意干预。
“美国不会……在军事上介入叙利亚内战，”杰克·沙利文在加州对观众说。
沙利文表示，美国将继续采取必要行动，防止伊斯兰国利用战斗带来的漏洞。伊斯兰国是一个暴力反西方的极端组织，据悉并未参与此次攻势，但在叙利亚沙漠中潜伏着恐怖分子。
在两人讲话数小时后，叛乱分子在叙利亚境内的惊人进军似乎已达到目标，叛军在大约 10 天内占领了该国许多其他主要城市后进入大马士革。叙利亚反对派战争监测机构负责人周日早些时候表示，阿萨德已离开叙利亚前往一个未公开的地点。
这是自叙利亚叛军上个月底发起进攻以来，特朗普首次就叛军的猛烈攻势发表评论。特朗普当时正在巴黎参加巴黎圣母院的重新开放仪式。
特朗普在帖子中表示，阿萨德不值得美国支持继续执政。
阿萨德政府得到了俄罗斯和伊朗军队以及真主党和其他与伊朗结盟的民兵的支持，这场战争已经持续了 13 年，反对试图推翻阿萨德的反对派团体。这场战争始于 2011 年反对阿萨德家族统治的一场基本和平的起义，已造成 50 万人死亡，叙利亚四分五裂，有超过六支外国军队和民兵卷入其中。美国早早就关闭了驻叙利亚大使馆，并对阿萨德在战争中的残酷行为实施了制裁。
叛乱分子由哈亚特·塔利尔·阿尔·沙姆领导，美国已将其列为恐怖组织，并称其与基地组织有联系，尽管该组织后来与基地组织断绝了关系。
到目前为止，叛乱分子几乎没有遇到叙利亚军队、俄罗斯和伊朗军队以及该国境内盟军民兵的抵抗。
拜登政府表示，叙利亚反对派部队轻易攻占政府控制的城市，表明俄罗斯在乌克兰的战争以及伊朗和伊朗民兵在加沙和黎巴嫩与以色列的战斗削弱了他们的实力。
“阿萨德的支持者——伊朗、俄罗斯和真主党——都被削弱了，注意力分散了，”沙利文周六在西米谷罗纳德·里根总统图书馆举行的国家安全官员、国防公司和立法者的年度聚会上说。
“他们中没有人愿意像过去那样向阿萨德提供支持，”他后来补充道。
美国在叙利亚有大约 900 名士兵，包括与反对派控制的东北部的库尔德盟友合作以防止伊斯兰国组织卷土重来的美军。
美国特种作战司令部负责人布莱恩·芬顿将军表示，他不想猜测叙利亚的动乱将如何影响美国军队在该国的足迹。“现在还言之过早，”他说。
芬顿在里根总统图书馆的一个小组会议上表示，不会改变的是，重点是破坏叙利亚的伊斯兰国行动和保护美国军队活动。
叙利亚反对派活动人士和地区官员一直在密切关注即将上任的特朗普政府是否暗示美国将如何应对叛军对阿萨德的进攻。
特朗普的国防过渡负责人、前退伍军人事务部部长罗伯特·威尔基在同一场加州活动中表示，“杀人阿萨德政权”的垮台将对伊朗的权力造成重大打击。
特朗普在帖子中表示，俄罗斯“在乌克兰问题上纠缠不休”，以至于“似乎无法阻止俄罗斯对叙利亚的军事行动，而叙利亚多年来一直受到他们的保护。”他表示，叛军可能会迫使阿萨德下台。
这位当选总统谴责了美国对战争的整体处理，但表示击溃阿萨德和俄罗斯军队可能是最好的选择。
“叙利亚一团糟，但不是我们的盟友，美国不应该插手。这不是我们的战斗。让它自行发展。不要卷入其中！”他在周六的帖子中写道。
华盛顿一位有影响力的叙利亚反对派活动人士穆阿兹·穆斯塔法打断了记者的简报，让他阅读特朗普的帖子，似乎哽咽了。他说，特朗普宣布美国应该置身事外，这是反对阿萨德的叙利亚人所能期待的最好结果。
叛军在叙利亚境内推进时，一直在从政府监狱释放阿萨德政府的政治犯。穆斯塔法周六向记者保证，反对派部队将对他们中任何被关押的美国人保持警惕，并尽最大努力保护他们。
穆斯塔法说，其中包括失踪十多年的美国记者奥斯汀·泰斯，他被怀疑被阿萨德关押。
哈亚特·塔利尔·阿尔·沙姆组织于 2016 年宣布脱离基地组织，并努力重塑自己的形象，包括打击其领土内的一些伊斯兰极端组织和战士，并将自己描绘成基督徒和其他宗教少数群体的保护者。
尽管美国和联合国仍将其指定为恐怖组织，但特朗普的第一届政府告诉立法者，美国不再针对该组织的头目阿布·穆罕默德·阿尔·戈拉尼。
题图：周五，叙利亚反对派武装分子在反对派占领叙利亚哈马后沿街骑行，盖斯·阿尔赛义德/美联社
附原英文报道：
Trump says US should stay out of fighting in Syria as opposition forces gain
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, WILL WEISSERT and TARA COPP The Associated Press,Updated December 7, 2024
Syrian opposition fighters ride along the streets in the aftermath of the opposition’s takeover of Hama, Syria, on Friday, Ghaith Alsayed/Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. military should stay out of the fast-escalating conflict in Syria, where a dramatic rebel offensive reached the capital and threatened the rule of Syria’s Russian- and Iranian-allied president. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT,” Trump declared on social media.
As world leaders watched the stunning rebel advance, with its potential to alter the balance of power in the Middle East, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser separately stressed that the Biden administration had no intention of intervening.
“The United States is not going to … militarily dive into the middle of a Syrian civil war,” Jake Sullivan told an audience in California.
Sullivan said the U.S. would keep acting as necessary to keep the Islamic State — a violently anti-Western extremist group not known to be involved in the offensive but with sleeper cells in Syria’s deserts — from exploiting openings presented by the fighting.
Insurgents’ stunning march across Syria appeared to reach its goal hours after both men spoke, with rebels entering Damascus after claiming many of the country’s other major cities within roughly 10 days. The head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said early Sunday that Assad left the country for an undisclosed location.
Trump’s comments on the dramatic rebel push were his first since Syrian rebels launched their advance late last month. They came while he was in Paris for the reopening of the Notre Dame cathedral.
In his post, Trump said Assad did not deserve U.S. support to stay in power.
Assad’s government has been propped up by the Russian and Iranian military, along with Hezbollah and other Iranian-allied militias, in a now 13-year-old war against opposition groups seeking his overthrow. The war, which began as a mostly peaceful uprising in 2011 against the Assad family’s rule, has killed a half-million people, fractured Syria and drawn in a more than a half-dozen foreign militaries and militias. The U.S. early on closed its embassy in Syria and imposed sanctions over the brutality of Assad’s conduct of the war.
The insurgents are led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist group and says has links to al-Qaida, although the group has since broken ties with al-Qaida.
The insurgents met little resistance so far from the Syrian army, the Russian and Iranian militaries or allied militias in the country.
The Biden administration said the ease of Syrian opposition forces’ capture of government-held cities demonstrates how Russia’s war in Ukraine and Iran’s and Iranian militias’ fight against Israel in Gaza and Lebanon have diminished them.
“Assad’s backers — Iran, Russia and Hezbollah — have all been weakened and distracted,” Sullivan said Saturday at an annual gathering of national security officials, defense companies and lawmakers at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
“None of them are prepared to provide the kind of support to Assad that they provided in the past,” he later added.
The U.S. has about 900 troops in Syria, including U.S. forces working with Kurdish allies in the opposition-held northeast to prevent any resurgence of the Islamic State group.
Gen. Bryan Fenton, head of U.S. Special Operations Command, said he would not want to speculate on how the upheaval in Syria would affect the U.S. military’s footprint in the country. “It’s still too early to tell,” he said.
What would not change is the focus on disrupting IS operations in Syria and protecting U.S. troops, Fenton said during a panel at the Reagan event.
Syrian opposition activists and regional officials have been watching closely for any indication from the incoming Trump administration on how the U.S. would respond to the rebel advances against Assad.
Robert Wilkie, Trump’s defense transition chief and a former secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, said during the same California event that the collapse of the “murderous Assad regime” would be a major blow to Iran’s power.
In his post, Trump said Russia “is so tied up in Ukraine” that it “seems incapable of stopping this literal march through Syria, a country they have protected for years.” He said rebels could possibly force Assad from power.
The president-elect condemned the overall U.S. handling of the war but said the routing of Assad and Russian forces might be for the best.
“Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” he wrote in Saturday’s post.
An influential Syrian opposition activist in Washington, Mouaz Moustafa, interrupted a briefing to reporters to read Trump’s post and appeared to choke up. He said Trump’s declaration that the U.S. should stay out of the fight was the best outcome that the the Syrians aligned against Assad could hope for.
Rebels have been freeing political detainees of the Assad government from government prisons as they advance across Syria. Moustafa pledged to reporters Saturday that opposition forces would be alert for any U.S. detainees among them and do their best to protect them.
Moustafa said that includes Austin Tice, an American journalist missing for more than a decade and suspected to be held by Assad.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham renounced al-Qaida in 2016 and has worked to rebrand itself, including cracking down on some Islamic extremist groups and fighters in its territory and portraying itself as a protector of Christians and other religious minorities.
While the U.S. and United Nations still designate it as a terrorist organization, Trump’s first administration told lawmakers that the U.S. was no longer targeting the group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani.
