Nebraska Panhandle News

Today, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts from Nebraska engaged in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to discuss the effects of Middle Eastern regional politics and the implications of the fall of the Assad regime in Syria on American interests concerning Russia, Türkiye, and Iran.

During the hearing, Senator Ricketts expressed concerns about the broader geopolitical ramifications. He remarked, "As we see what’s unfolding in Syria, we know that the ramifications are from Putin’s war in Russia. There’s miscalculation. There is rippling through the system. We see it in Nagorno-Karabakh, we see it here in Syria."

Ricketts emphasized Russia's historical role in supporting Assad and noted recent developments regarding European interactions with Syrian officials: "How he [Putin] was not able to support the Assad regime. But we know in years past that Russia was critical to keeping Assad afloat and basically responsible for killing Syrians," he stated.

The senator also highlighted reports about European discussions with al-Sharaa concerning lifting sanctions under certain conditions: "They’ve been getting that historically from Russia, but recently we’ve been reading reports that the Europeans have been in conversation with al-Sharaa about, again, lifting some of the sanctions and one of the conditions being kicking the Russians basically out of their naval base and air base."