Mentioned this in a previous post- The salivating in the media was very obvious- Micheal Rubin AEI
The United States would support Alawi autonomy in Latakia to mirror the Kurds’ autonomy in northeastern Syria. The U.S. Navy would be willing to defend the Alawis with air power should Syrian Sunni forces seek to push into the region. In exchange, the United States would take over the Russian Naval base at Tartus.
This would kill two birds with one stone: First, without a base in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Russian Navy could no longer easily ply its waters, and would instead remain in the Black Sea where the Ukrainians could pick them off if Putin does not make peace with reparations. Second, as the Eastern Mediterranean grows in strategic importance, a turnkey base could be just what the United States requires to complement its permanent presence in Souda Bay and Alexandropouli, Greece. Frankly, a permanent U.S. Naval presence in Tartus would also help contain an increasingly irredentist and destabilizing Turkey.
Contain and target Turkey. This plan has been in action for a while
The notion of taking over a Russian base is not far-fetched. Consider the port of Berbera in today’s Somaliland. In 1962, the Soviet Union signed an agreement with Somalia to upgrade and refurbish the Berbera port. Before the Soviets acquired Aden in 1967, Berbera had become an important Soviet Naval base supporting Soviet operations in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. When, during the 1977-78 Ogaden War, Somalia changed sides in the Cold War, the United States took over Berbera. It became a base of operations for U.S. Special Forces, a port of call for U.S. ships, and the nearby airfield became an emergency landing strip for NASA’s space shuttle program.
Leasing Tartus could be just as momentous in terms of strategy, and it comes at little cost. What could be better from Trump’s focus on the bottom line for Russian taxpayers to have paid for the facility’s reconstruction and upgrades? Nor does a U.S. presence mean antagonism with the new Syrian regime; if anything, a U.S. no-fly zone over Latakia can give the new Syrian regime in Damascus and excuse to end the civil war.
If you have any doubt that the US is not behind the plan to cut Syria up into tiny useless and dependent pieces- think again.