Normally this would be a bottom story of the day: The United States and Britain are working together to pressure Russia into withholding support from a bad actor in the Middle East. That's about as conventional as geopolitics ever gets. It transcends partisan changes in either or both parties' leadership roles, and it hasn't even been changed all that much by the collapse of communism - an event that is astonishingly approaching 30 years old.
But it the bizarro world of political narratives left over from the 2016 election, it's bizarrely seen as odd news:
Theresa May and Donald Trump have agreed that there is a "window of opportunity" to encourage Russia to stop supporting Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
The talks came after Boris Johnson told G7 leaders in Italy that sanctions against Russia would be considered. However, the G7 Group of Nations have failed to reach an agreement over sanctions against Russia and Syria, prior to the US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, visiting Russia to persuade them to abandon its Syrian ally – BBC News reports.
The nations agreed that more evidence was needed before applying sanctions on Russia.
May and Trump discussed the crisis over the telephone, where May agreed that it was no longer in Russia's strategic interest to support President Assad.
Trump ordered a series of missile strikes against a Syrian airbase on Friday in response to a chemical attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun on 4 April. The attack killed over 80 people, including children.
The US air strike on a Syrian airbase was met by anger from Russia who condemned it as an “act of aggression”.
This only seems weird to you if you bought into thinly supported narratives about Trump somehow being inclined to align with Putin and Russia. As far as anyone can see, the "evidence" of this amounted to a few Trump comments calling Putin a strong leader, and the apparent preference of the Russians not to have to deal with a President Hillary Clinton.
The rest of this business - including the suggestion that Trump somehow had "ties to Russia" or that his campaign somehow collaborated with the Russians to defeat Hillary has nothing behind it apart from the media constantly telling us "questions are swirling" and the story "won't go away."
Of course, no story will ever go away if they're determined to keep it alive. That doesn't mean there's anything to it. And the longer the story "doesn't go away" but takes on no substance whatsoever, the more ridiculous the media look for refusing to put it away.
On the matter of Russia and Syria, though, this is an excellent object lesson in how geopolitics usually settles into its normal patterns regardless of the individual players. The U.S. and Britain have shared strategic interests, which are counter to the strategic objectives of Russia, or at least of Putin as Russia's president. Trump is right when he says we're better off working with the Russians toward common goals wherever we can, but as long as Putin sees a monster like Assad as a useful check on western influence in the region, strategic realities will drive us to work alongside Britain and against Russia.
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There was never any serious reason to think Trump would depart from this reality. Indeed, Obama departed from it far more than Trump did if only because Obama was less concerned with pursuing U.S. or western strategic interests. Trump probably loves the idea that he could be the first post-communist president to somehow bring Russia into the fold, but he knows better than to take the U.S. outside the fold in order to do it.
Many people seem surprised that Trump and May can work together. That simply demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of international relations. Democrat Bill Clinton worked well with Tory John Major. Republican George W. Bush worked phenomenally with Labor's Tony Blair. Democrat Barack Obama did OK with Tory Gordon Brown. It's not about party and it's not even about personality, really. It's about nations needing each other and sharing strategic interests.
The U.S. and Britain do. The U.S. and Russia don't, at least at the moment, regardless of how much people think Trump "gets" Putin.
By the way, a positive personal relationship between the leaders of rival nations can be a good thing. It won't prevent you from being rivals but it can prevent an incident raised by someone's rash reaction to a small matter that escalates into big trouble. That's when a constructive phone call between rivals who have learned to respect each other can calm the situation and prevent a major crisis.
If Trump and Putin develop that kind of rapport, that's a very good thing. But until Putin changes his vision of Russia's role in the world, we're always going to be more closely aligned with Britain than with Russia, regardless of what how any president seems to feel personally about someone else.
