SYRIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump has ended the clandestine American program to provide arms and supplies to Syrian rebel groups, American officials said, a recognition that the effort was failing and that the administration has given up hope of helping to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The decision came more than a month ago, the officials said, by which time the effort to deliver the arms had slowed to a trickle.
It was never publicly announced, just as the beginnings of the program four years ago were officially a secret, authorized by President Barack Obama through a ‘finding’ that permitted the C.I.A. to conduct a deniable program. News of the troublesome program soon leaked out…
The White House had no comment. But the decision is bound to be welcomed by the Russians, whose military has backed Mr. Assad’s government and relentlessly attacked some of the rebel groups that the United States was supplying, under the guise of helping to eradicate terrorists.”
-David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt, and Ben Hubbard, “Trump Ends Covert Aid to Syrian Rebels Trying to Topple Assad,” The New York Times online, July 19, 2017