7 Times Tulsi Gabbard Went To Bat In Congress For Now-Deposed Syrian Dictator Bashar Assad | EUROtoday

The obvious sympathy that Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic consultant and GOP President-elect Donald Trump’s choose for nationwide intelligence director, has expressed for now-deposed Syrian President Bashar Assad continues to path her as she tries to spherical up help amongst senators for her affirmation.

“I’ve got a lot of questions,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) mentioned Monday at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit.

Warner mentioned he needed to learn about Gabbard’s “interchange with Assad and seeming affinity for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” in addition to her help for intel whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.

The Assad linkage is so extensively mentioned that Marc Short, who served as chief of workers to Mike Pence throughout his vice presidency, made a chopping joke on a Sunday morning political speak present, saying that the three individuals most nervous by Assad’s latest downfall had been “Putin, the ayatollah [of Iran] and Tulsi Gabbard.”

Gabbard, who was a member of Congress from 2013 to 2021, traveled to Syria in 2017 to fulfill with Assad in a visit that raised eyebrows.

After inheriting management of his nation from his father, Assad was recognized for being a very brutal and corrupt dictator, even by Middle East requirements. In 2013, his forces had been accused of utilizing sarin gasoline in an assault killing 1,400 individuals and of utilizing barrel bombs — explosives that may be comprised of empty barrels and different scrap, together with gasoline and shrapnel — in opposition to civilians. His authorities’s experience in torture led the U.S. to outsource interrogations of some terrorism suspects there throughout President George W. Bush’s “global war on terror.”

In the wake of Assad’s fall, among the prices of his rule have come to mild, with journalists documenting his fancy automobile assortment and the discharge of individuals stored within the brutal Saydnaya jail.

Freedom House, a democracy advocacy group, gave Syria a rating of only one out of 100 in its 2024 rating of nations by how free they’re, forward of solely Tibet and Nagorno-Karabakh (which Freedom House consists of as disputed territories).

After her 2017 journey, Gabbard defended herself, saying any peace deal amid Syria’s civil conflict would wish Assad’s sign-off.

“Whatever you think about President Assad, the fact is that he is the president of Syria,” she mentioned then.

That modified over the weekend, when Assad fled the nation and obtained asylum in Russia below the safety of fellow strongman Putin. His fall ended greater than 50 years of household rule after a surprising 11-day insurgent advance.

During her time within the House of Representatives, Gabbard usually justified a light-weight contact with Assad by citing the specter of victory by Islamic militants, who had been among the many rival factions difficult his governance within the civil conflict. That stance additionally appeared to conveniently diminish Assad’s culpability for doubtless conflict crimes.

“Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country,” she instructed CNN in 2017.

While the group that led the insurgent coalition to take down Assad, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, is listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. authorities and has been affiliated with al Qaeda previously, the opening days of post-Assad Syria haven’t seen the fundamentalist Islamic crackdown some had feared.

On Monday, Gabbard instructed reporters that her views now aligned with Trump’s, who’s commented on Assad’s fall by saying that the U.S. mustn’t get entangled — an possibility that just about nobody had instructed.

“I stand in full support and wholeheartedly agree with the statements that President Trump has made over these last few days with regards to the developments in Syria,” Gabbard acknowledged.

Here are among the issues Gabbard had mentioned on the ground of the House, or later inserted as written statements within the Congressional Record, on the necessity to maintain Assad from being toppled and what would occur after his fall:

In advocating for eradicating language in an annual protection coverage invoice that authorized creating a method to counter Iran, Gabbard mentioned, “It’s clear that, if left unchecked, war hawks in the Trump administration will drag our country into more Middle East wars, leaving destruction in its wake around the world and here at home.”

She added: “So what’s the objective of this authorization for war? Is it regime change in Iran? Regime change in Syria? More war against Iran and Syria? Yemen?”

Talking about her invoice to ban the federal government from supporting international terror teams, Gabbard mentioned the U.S. had for years been “directly and indirectly supporting allies and partners of groups like al Qaeda and ISIS with money, weapons, intelligence and other support in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government.”

“The Wall Street Journal reports that rebel grounds are ‘doubling down on their alliance’ with al Qaeda. This alliance has rendered the phrase ‘moderate rebels’ meaningless. We must stop this madness,” she mentioned.

Speaking of a provision to equip and practice insurgent Syrian teams in a protection funding invoice, Gabbard mentioned the teams remained centered on overthrowing Assad, which might find yourself “creating an even worse humanitarian crisis and an even greater threat to the world.”

“We’re waging two wars in Syria, providing arms and support to groups that have opposing objectives,” she mentioned. “The first war is a counterproductive one to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad, which must end. And the second is our war to defeat ISIS, al Qaeda and other jihadist groups, which we must win. By helping groups fighting to overthrow Assad, we’re essentially helping ISIS and al Qaeda achieve their objective of taking over all of Syria.”

In discussing certainly one of two Syria-related resolutions, Gabbard referred to as it “a thinly veiled attempt to use the rationale of humanitarianism as a justification for overthrowing the Syrian government of Assad.”

“If the U.S. is successful in its current effort to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad, allowing groups like ISIS and al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations to take over all of Syria, which is what will happen, including those Assad-controlled areas where Christians and other religious minorities remain protected, the United States will be morally culpable for the genocide that will occur as a result,” she mentioned.

“This is exactly what happened when we overthrew Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It is what happened in Libya when we overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. To do the same thing over and over and expect a different result is the definition of insanity.”

In discussing one other decision, Gabbard mentioned she objected particularly to language saying that “Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s violence against the Syrian people has attracted foreign fighters from around the world, who have supported and committed ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] atrocities.”

“I fully reject this amendment to the resolution which gives moral legitimacy to the actions of ISIS, al-Qaeda, and others who are committing genocide against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities in Syria,” she mentioned.

In debating an annual protection coverage invoice, Gabbard mentioned a provision to coach what had been described as “moderate” Syrian rebels “seriously polluted this critical piece of legislation.”

“I could not in good conscience vote to support the so-called moderate forces who often work hand in hand with al Qaeda or ISIS, and whose personnel and weapons often end up in the hands of those terrorists,” she mentioned. “This bill continues the same failed practices of undeclared war, regime change and nation-building that have held us mired in the Middle East for over a decade.”

In debating an modification to a stopgap spending invoice to help Syrian opposition, Gabbard mentioned, “Voting to support this proposal is actually a vote to overthrow Assad because overthrowing Assad is the primary objective of the so-called Free Syrian Army.”

She added: “If we combine the missions of destroying ISIL and of overthrowing Assad, this is not a smart or effective strategy for a number of reasons. We must focus on one mission — to destroy ISIL and other Islamic extremists who’ve declared war on us. Our mission should not be to topple the Assad regime, which would make the situation in the region even worse and more unstable than it is today.”