{"id":390460,"date":"2018-12-25T09:42:29","date_gmt":"2018-12-25T08:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/european-powers-condemn-trumps-withdrawal-from-syria\/"},"modified":"2018-12-25T09:42:29","modified_gmt":"2018-12-25T08:42:29","slug":"european-powers-condemn-trumps-withdrawal-from-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/european-powers-condemn-trumps-withdrawal-from-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"European powers condemn Trump\u2019s withdrawal from Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>European powers condemn Trump\u2019s withdrawal from Syria<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Johannes Stern<br \/>\n    <br \/>24 December 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>The withdrawal of US troops from Syria announced by US President Donald Trump and the subsequent resignation of his defence secretary, James Mattis, have provoked a fierce response from European leaders. After the initial shock, the European ruling elites reacted overwhelmingly with calls for a more independent European foreign and defence policy. In Germany, in particular, leading politicians and the media are outdoing one another with demands for an even faster rearmament of the German army (Bundeswehr) and the establishment of a European military force.<\/p>\n<p>Trump&#8217;s decision evidently came as a complete surprise to European governments. In their official statements they condemn the move and urge a continuation of the war against the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria. \u201cThe decision of the White House is cause for concern,\u201d reads an official statement of the German defence ministry. IS was \u201cterritorially under control, but by no means defeated.\u201d One hopes that \u201cthe Americans will not withdraw in an overly hasty manner, but are aware of their responsibilities, not only to their own troops but also to others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A similar response came from Germany\u2019s foreign minister, Heiko Maas (Social Democratic Party), who campaigned for greater military and economic intervention by Germany in Arab countries during his visit to Iraq last week. \u201cThe abrupt change of course of the American side was surprising\u201d and not only for Germany. There was \u201cthe danger that the consequences of this decision will harm the fight against IS and jeopardise the achievements made.\u201d The fight against the IS will be decided \u201cin the long run\u2014militarily and also with civil means: Bringing about&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/12\/24\/syria-d24.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 European powers condemn Trump\u2019s withdrawal from Syria By Johannes Stern 24 December 2018 The withdrawal of US troops from Syria announced by US President Donald Trump and the subsequent resignation of his defence secretary, James Mattis, have provoked a fierce response from European leaders. After the initial shock, the European ruling elites reacted overwhelmingly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-390460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}