President Donald Trump arrives on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., March 9, 2025.
On the menu today: For the second time in two months, President Trump promises that Hamas will have hell to pay if it doesn’t release all the hostages, including one remaining American — but at the same time, the Trump administration has broken with all precedent and held direct talks with Hamas. Trump declared that he was considering tougher sanctions on Russia — with few specifics — but Moscow responded by attacking Ukrainian civilians even more viciously. Syria falls apart, but there’s a needed correction to the narrative that Bashar al-Assad was some sort of noble defender of Syrian Christians.
Apparently, Hell Will Be Paid Much, Much Later
Spot the pattern:
Donald Trump, speaking of Hamas and the remaining hostages, February 11:
As far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12:00 — I think it’s an appropriate time I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out. I’d say they ought to be returned by 12:00 on Saturday and if they’re not returned — all of them, not in drips and drabs not two and one and three and four and two. Saturday at 12:00, and after that, I would say all hell is going to break out. . . . You’ll find out and they’ll find out too. Hamas will find out what I mean. They’re going to find out what I mean. These are sick people.
Hamas did release some hostages, but the terrorist organization still has at least 24 living hostages, including Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old man from New Jersey, last seen alive in a Hamas propaganda video released November 30. Hamas also holding the bodies of 34 others who were either killed in the initial attack or in captivity, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in the 2014 war.
You may have noticed that all hell has not yet broken out upon Hamas. But Trump returned to the matter last week, as well.
President Trump on Truth Social, March 5:
“Shalom Hamas” means Hello and Goodbye — You can choose. Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you. Only sick and twisted people keep bodies, and you are sick and twisted! I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say. I have just met with your former Hostages whose lives you have destroyed. This is your last warning! For the leadership, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a chance. Also, to the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!
Apparently, hell will be paid much later. “President Donald Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is expected to travel to the Qatari capital of Doha on Tuesday for ceasefire talks, according to a U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. They would be the first Gaza ceasefire negotiations since Trump took office.”
It turns out that for weeks, the U.S. government has been negotiating directly with Hamas; the U.S. government had bargained with the terrorist group directly before. For a long time, American policy was to never negotiate with terrorists, because “direct political talks hurt short-term objectives by providing legitimacy to violent, non-state actors and placing the public at risk by prolonging peace timelines.”
President Trump on Russia, on Truth Social, March 7:
Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely “pounding” Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED. To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!
That day, our old friend Kevin Hassett was asked to elaborate on the banking sanctions and tariffs options remaining to the president that haven’t already been enacted:
Q: The president just posted on Truth Social he’s considering sanctions on Russian banking maybe also tariffs to drive them to the negotiating table for a ceasefire, peace agreement. What levers haven’t been pulled yet? What companies could be in the crosshairs? Give us some details on what he’s looking at.
Hassett: President Trump is adamant that we need to get everybody to the table, and we could do that with carrots, and we could do that with sticks. And he’s talking to everybody, and he’s got you know, a whole litany of potential proposals that he could throw their way to get them to the table. But the bottom line is the president wants to stop the carnage. He wants to save lives and he wants to end the war and he’s doing everything he can to talk people into going to the table and trying to do that and exactly you know how they do it with carrots or sticks is something that’s a work in progress that it’s you know Marco Rubio and the president are working on that every day
Q: (inaudible) of what can be impacted?
Hassett: No. I don’t — I don’t have that.
Q: What’s left?
Hassett: I mean there are a heck of a lot of things that are — that are left for sure. But let’s see how it goes.
Not exactly an overflowing fountain of specifics!
In the days since Trump’s tariff threat, Russia has only intensified its bombing of Ukrainian civilians, which is now much more deadly and effective because we are no longer sharing intelligence and have cut off aid for counterattacks. This weekend, Trump sat down for an interview with Maria Bartiromo — who he just appointed to the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center, alongside Laura Ingraham — and shrugged that Ukraine may not survive the war no matter what policies he enacts:
Bartiromo: Are you comfortable with that, the fact that you walked away, and Ukraine may not survive?
Trump: Well, it may not survive anyway. But we have some weaknesses with Russia. You know, it takes two. Look, it was not going to happen, that war, and it happened. So now we’re stuck with this mess. Think of what he stuck me with, open borders, where we have 21 million people came into our country, many of whom should not be here.
Bartiromo also asked Trump to explain the contrast in how he treats the hostile anti-American regime in Moscow with the hostile anti-American force in the Gaza Strip:
Bartiromo: Have you been as tough on Russia as you have been on Hamas? I mean, what do you want to say to critics?
Trump: Well, I have been much tougher, because I haven’t done to Hamas. That’s been Israel that has to do to Hamas. But Israel does tell me what’s going on. I think I have been very tough to Russia, tougher than anybody’s ever been to Russia, if you think about it.
Have you noticed the pattern yet? So far, President Trump’s second term has featured the direst threats, followed by . . . not much at all. The guy whose fanbase keeps depicting him as Rambo keeps turning into Woody Allen when push comes to shove.
Getting Out of Dodge at the Right Time, Before Syria Falls Apart
Have you ever heard about a terrible car accident at an intersection near your home, and thought, “I was just there!”
That’s how I’m feeling seeing the reports of abominable executions and piles of bodies in the streets in Latakia, Syria:
Syria’s interim leader has called days of violent clashes between pro-government forces and supporters of ousted former President Bashar al-Assad “expected challenges” as a monitor said the death toll has risen to 642 people.
Eyewitnesses have accused government supporters of carrying out execution-style killings and video footage has emerged of mass graves.
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The UK-based Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) told CNN on Sunday that “non-state armed groups” that are loyal to Assad were responsible for the deaths of 315 individuals, which include 167 members of state security forces and 148 civilians.
I may well have visited Syria during the last days of its post-Assad (comparable) peace and stability.
The bloody 13-year civil war pitting the regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad against assorted Syrian rebel groups was not a story of a good guy against bad guys. It was the story of one kind of bad guy against other assorted varieties of bad guys, with a handful of not-so-bad-guys from the American perspective in the mix. (The initial version of the Free Syrian Army was one of the better options of the lot, but they dissolved into myriad factions. A smaller group called the Syrian Free Army* is “a US-backed and trained unit of several hundred men” that “has been active in southern Syria at a site known as the Tanf Garrison.”)
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces are the West’s primary partner and have worked with U.S. forces against ISIS, but they only control a stretch of northeastern Syria.
But Syria’s fate was always going to be determined by the Syrians — the U.S. government did not play a decisive role in toppling Assad, and it’s unlikely that the U.S. would ever take actions sufficient to keep Assad in power, even if we were certain we wanted that outcome.
In some circles, particularly on the right, there’s this desire to retroactively paint Assad as some sort of noble defender of minority rights. That’s a serious oversimplification, to the point of being misleading.
During Assad’s rule, Christians civilians were shot, beaten to death, or left to perish in prison cells by government authorities.
Syria’s Christian communities were internally divided on whether Assad was a friend or foe.
Antoine Fleyfel, director of the Institute for Eastern Christians in Paris, said in December the regime “provided a certain level of protection. But it was an unhealthy protection that exploited them. The opening of prisons — where some Christians were also detained — has revealed the extent of the regime’s brutality, responsible for unbearable atrocities. Those Christians who showed any support for the regime likely did so as a choice of the lesser evil.”
Assad was a ruthless bloodthirsty bastard who used chemical weapons willy-nilly, and used his air force and the assistance of the Russians to bomb the bejeezus out of civilians. Assad’s relative non-hostility to minorities like the Alawites and Christians was primarily a reflection that they presented no threat to him and his brutality was focused on other groups that were a danger to his continued rule.
I attribute this retroactive Assad romanticism on the right to Tulsi Gabbard’s relatively warm-and-fuzzy view of the Assad regime. Gabbard endorsed Trump and became his director of national intelligence, and a lot of Trump fans want her to be right; therefore, Assad must be the good guy and the people he’s bombing must be the bad guys.
But just as HTS’s terrorism doesn’t make Assad the hero, Assad’s villainy doesn’t make HTS the hero of the story, either. Sure, new Syrian president Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa has spent the last three months saying the right things, and it’s conceivable that his top priority is a genuine desire to rebuild the burned-out husk of a country he’s inherited. Indeed, the U.S. government saw a handful of areas of potential cooperation with the nascent government — mostly intelligence-sharing to prevent ISIS attacks.
But if there are militias running through the streets of Latakia, killing Christian and Alawite civilians, and the new Syrian government can’t get those militias to halt immediately and bring them to justice, then there just isn’t going to be much room for cooperation with this regime.
*Get your “Judean People’s Front vs. People’s Front for Judea” jokes out of the way.
ADDENDUM: Over in that other Washington publication that features my columns, another look at my trip to Syria and the bloodshed that ensued shortly after my departure.
@jimgeraghty