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

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

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

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

The Assad linkage is so extensively mentioned that Marc Brief, who served as chief of employees to Mike Pence throughout his vice presidency, made a cutting joke on a Sunday morning political discuss present, saying that the three folks most apprehensive by Assad’s current downfall have 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 satisfy 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 Center East requirements. In 2013, his forces have been accused of utilizing sarin fuel in an assault killing 1,400 folks and of using barrel bombs — explosives that may be produced from 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 “international struggle on terror.”

Within the wake of Assad’s fall, among the prices of his rule have come to gentle, with journalists documenting his fancy car collection and the release of individuals stored within the brutal Saydnaya jail.

Freedom Home, a democracy advocacy group, gave Syria a rating of only 1 out of 100 in its 2024 rating of nations by how free they’re, forward of solely Tibet and Nagorno-Karabakh (which Freedom Home contains as disputed territories).

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

“No matter you concentrate on President Assad, the very fact is that he’s 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.

Throughout her time within the Home of Representatives, Gabbard usually justified a lightweight contact with Assad by citing the specter of victory by Islamic militants, who have been among the many rival factions difficult his governance within the civil struggle. That stance additionally appeared to conveniently diminish Assad’s culpability for doubtless struggle crimes.

“Let the Syrian folks themselves decide their future, not the US, not some overseas nation,” she instructed CNN in 2017.

Whereas 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 become involved — an choice that nearly nobody had steered.

“I stand in full assist and wholeheartedly agree with the statements that President Trump has revamped these previous couple of days as regards to the developments in Syria,” Gabbard stated.

Listed here are among the issues Gabbard had mentioned on the ground of the Home, or later inserted as written statements within the Congressional Document, on the necessity to hold Assad from being toppled and what would occur after his fall:

In advocating for eradicating language in an annual protection coverage invoice that accepted creating a technique to counter Iran, Gabbard said, “It’s clear that, if left unchecked, struggle hawks within the Trump administration will drag our nation into extra Center East wars, leaving destruction in its wake around the globe and right here at residence.”

She added: “So what’s the target of this authorization for struggle? Is it regime change in Iran? Regime change in Syria? Extra struggle in opposition to Iran and Syria? Yemen?”

Talking about her invoice to ban the federal government from supporting overseas terror teams, Gabbard said the U.S. had for years been “instantly and not directly supporting allies and companions of teams like al Qaeda and ISIS with cash, weapons, intelligence and different assist of their battle to overthrow the Syrian authorities.”

“The Wall Avenue Journal experiences that insurgent teams are, quote, ‘doubling down on their alliance’ with al Qaeda. This alliance has rendered the phrase ‘average rebels’ meaningless. We should cease this insanity,” she mentioned.

Speaking of a provision to equip and prepare insurgent Syrian teams in a protection funding invoice, Gabbard said the teams remained centered on overthrowing Assad, which might find yourself “creating an excellent worse humanitarian disaster and an excellent larger menace to the world.”

“We’re waging two wars in Syria, offering arms and assist to teams which have opposing goals,” she mentioned. “The primary struggle is a counterproductive one to overthrow the Syrian authorities of Assad, which should finish. And the second is our struggle to defeat ISIS, al Qaeda and different jihadist teams, which we should win. By serving to teams preventing to overthrow Assad, we’re basically serving to ISIS and al Qaeda obtain their goal of taking on all of Syria.”

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

“If the U.S. is profitable in its present effort to overthrow the Syrian authorities of Assad, permitting teams like ISIS and al Qaeda and different terrorist organizations to take over all of Syria, which is what is going to occur, together with these Assad-controlled areas the place Christians and different non secular minorities stay protected, the US shall be morally culpable for the genocide that may happen because of this,” she mentioned.

“That is precisely what occurred after we overthrew Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It’s what occurred in Libya after we overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. To do the identical factor again and again and anticipate a distinct result’s the definition of madness.”

In discussing one other decision, Gabbard said she objected particularly to language saying that “Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s violence in opposition to the Syrian folks has attracted overseas fighters from around the globe, who’ve supported and dedicated ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] atrocities.”

“I absolutely reject this modification to the decision which provides ethical legitimacy to the actions of ISIS, al-Qaeda, and others who’re committing genocide in opposition to Christians, Yazidis, and different non secular minorities in Syria,” she mentioned.

In debating an annual protection coverage invoice, Gabbard said a provision to coach what have been described as “average” Syrian rebels “critically polluted this important piece of laws.”

“I couldn’t in good conscience vote to assist the so-called average forces who usually work hand in hand with al Qaeda or ISIS, and whose personnel and weapons usually find yourself within the palms of these terrorists,” she mentioned. “This invoice continues the identical failed practices of undeclared struggle, regime change and nation-building which have held us mired within the Center East for over a decade.”

In debating an modification to a stopgap spending invoice to help Syrian opposition, Gabbard said, “Voting to assist this proposal is definitely a vote to overthrow Assad as a result of overthrowing Assad is the first goal of the so-called Free Syrian Military.”

She added: “If we mix the missions of destroying ISIL and of overthrowing Assad, this isn’t a wise or efficient technique for various causes. We should give attention to one mission — to destroy ISIL and different Islamic extremists who’ve declared struggle on us. Our mission mustn’t be to topple the Assad regime, which might make the state of affairs within the area even worse and extra unstable than it’s immediately.”