NEW YORK: US President Donald Trump said in a tweet that Saudi Arabia, not the US, will provide funds to help rebuild Syria, destroyed, in fact, mostly by American and Saudi-sponsored terrorists.

“Saudi Arabia has now agreed to spend the necessary money needed to help rebuild Syria, instead of the United States,” Trump tweeted a news report here said. “See? Isn’t it nice when immensely wealthy countries help rebuild their neighbors rather than a Great Country, the US, that is 5000 miles away,” he continued, Press Trust TV reported.

Political analyst Barry Grossman said Trump is shirking American responsibility for the reconstruction of the war-torn country.

“I am quite sure that, at this stage, President Bashar al-Assad will have no great problem with Trump taking the position that it is up to other nations to foot the bill of rebuilding Syrian infrastructure destroyed by US allies enabled with US weapons. After all, President Assad quite astutely said some months ago that he is not interested in the US or its allies investing in Syria’s rebuild, bearing in mind that they are responsible for causing the damage,” Grossman told Press TV on Tuesday.

“After all, one need only to look at Japan and Germany today to recognise the price those nations paid by conceding their sovereignty and independence as part of the package deal which brought peace to the world, shiny new infrastructure to both of those nations, and, inadvertently, created powerful competitors for US industry, the latter considered by many to be a mistake we can assume the US does not want to repeat,” he added.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2018