Tag Archives: Syria withdrawal

Will Trump Hold Firm on Syrian Pullout? by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on December 21, 2018 | Leave a comment

Let’s hope Trump holds firm; it would be a sea change in American policy. From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:

“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there,” wrote President Donald Trump, as he ordered the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Syria, stunning the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

Trump overruled his secretaries of state and defense, and jolted this city and capitals across NATO Europe and the Middle East.

Yet, Trump is doing exactly what he promised to do in his campaign. And what his decision seems to say is this:

We are extricating America from the forever war of the Middle East so foolishly begun by previous presidents. We are coming home. The rulers and peoples of this region are going to have to find their own way and fight their own wars. We are not so powerful that we can fight their wars while we also confront Iran and North Korea and face new Cold Wars with Russia and China.

As for the terrorists of ISIS, says Trump, they are defeated.

Yet, despite the heavy casualties and lost battles ISIS has suffered, the collapse of the caliphate, expulsion from its Syrian capital Raqqa and Iraqi capital Mosul, and from almost all territories it controlled in both countries, ISIS is not dead. It lives on in thousands of true believers hidden in those countries. And, like al-Qaida, it has followers across the Middle East and inspires haters of the West living in the West.

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Overreach: Trump’s Syria Withdrawal Order Came as Reaction to Admin Hawks Demanding Forever War, by Russia Insider

Posted on December 21, 2018 | Leave a comment

Pompeo, Bolton, and cohorts may have pushed too hard for war in the Middle East. From Russia Insider at lewrockwell.com:

This time it’s real. It isn’t entirely impossible Trump will reverse himself later on yet again, or qualify the withdrawal in some other way, but for now it is clear that he has indeed given the order to Pentagon to get all its forces out of Syria. This has always been his instinct and inclination, but until now the Empire-first hawks he has surrounded himself with always in the end convinced him to keep the soldiers there after all:

“We know Trump’s instincts from the get-go were to get these guys out of Syria,” Tamara Wittes, a former State Department Middle East official now with the Brookings Institution, told Al-Monitor. “And yet, he has clearly been persuaded at several points ‘not yet, ISIS is not quite defeated, but we can use [the troop presence] as leverage against Iran.’ He becomes persuaded, and then at a certain point, … he decides enough is enough. He just changes his mind.”

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Reactions To Trump’s Syria Withdrawal Plan Say More Than The Plan Itself, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on December 20, 2018 | Leave a comment

The reaction has been hysterical, and hysterically funny. From Caitlin Johnstone at medium.com:

President Trump has ordered the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, which is reportedly expected to take 60–100 days or 30 days depending on who you ask. According to Kurdish forces in eastern Syria the withdrawal of American as well as French troops is already underway, though France is saying it’s staying. The number of troops to be withdrawn which keeps getting repeated in the news is 2,000, but there’ve been reports that the actual number of US ground troops in Syria is closer to 4,000. The US-led airstrike campaign against Islamic State will reportedly continue.

Trump says the withdrawal is because ISIS has been defeated in Syria, but others are pointing to the conspicuous timing of his recent chat with Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdoğan, who has announced a coming military operation against Kurdish forces in Syria east of the Euphrates in the near future, as the more likely reason. An anonymous senior US official has told Reuters that the two leaders didn’t discuss a US withdrawal from Syria, but the timing of the conversation as well as a recent $3.5 billion arms deal with Turkey indicates the the US withdrawal and Erdoğan’s planned military assault could very well be related. The Kurds put all their eggs in the basket of US support out of a desire to create their own nation, and a US withdrawal means they’ll be forced to either court an alliance with Damascus, as some analysts believe will happen, or risk being trapped between hostile Turkish forces and hostile Syrian coalition forces as the Assad government races to reclaim Syrian territory.

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Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due – Trump Is Right on Syria, by Maj. Danny Sjursen

Posted on December 20, 2018 | Leave a comment

The real question is whether Trump will actually be able to withdraw the US military presence in Syria. From Danny Sjursen at antiwar.com:

“Impulsive, irresponsible, and dangerous.” Such was the way, just this morning on CNN, that Democratic Representative, and House Minority Whip, Steny Hoyer described President Trump’s recent announcement that he’s bringing home the 2,000 U.S. troops currently in Syria. Last night, Republican Senator Lindsay Graham – a true hawk’s hawk – declared on the Senate floor that Trump’s decision is a “disaster,” and a “stain on the honor of the United States.” Two points here, one minor, one major – let’s begin with a semantic quibble: when maintaining national “honor” becomes a last ditch argument for continuing indecisive, perpetual war, perhaps it really is time to leave. And, more importantly, there’s this: anytime that Steny Hoyer and Lindsay Graham are in agreement and share a disdain for a foreign policy decision – even a Trump decision – well, then, the president might just be on to something.

My point is this: the bipartisan interventionist/militarist consensus of centrist Dems and hawkish Republicans has brought only disaster, death, humanitarian crisis, exploding debt and endless war for nearly two decades. For ample evidence see Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, etc. So, why are we still listening to these folks? Well, partly because the United States is an increasingly militarized (ostensible) republic in which a world-leading domestic arms industry all but owns Congress and the corporate media. Then there’s the matter of Trump – a man that the bipartisan Washington establishment simply loathes. Indeed, The Donald can do no right as far as these folks are concerned. Now, few authors – especially serving on active-duty in the military – have been as (constructively) critical of this president as I have, but occasionally the man demonstrates good sense, especially in foreign affairs. Fairness demands that we recognize this, whatever we think of the president’s general personality.

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Posted in Eurasian Axis, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Media, Military, War

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Trump Criticized For Breaking With Longstanding American Tradition Of Remaining In Middle Eastern Countries Indefinitely, by The Babylon Bee

Posted on December 20, 2018 | Leave a comment

Satire at its finest, from babylonbee.com:

After Trump announced that US troops would be pulled out of Syria, the President was quickly criticized by leaders on both the left and the right for breaking with the longstanding American tradition of remaining in Middle Eastern countries indefinitely.

Trump drew ire from both sides of the aisle for his “careless and reckless” disregard for the beloved American custom of meddling overseas without a congressional declaration of war and then hanging around for another few decades.

“Occupying a country on the other side of the globe and staying there forever is an American pastime,” said a CNN host. “For Trump to pull out when we haven’t even been there a decade yet is a disgusting display of his selfishness and unwillingness to conform to the standards of presidential decorum.”

“Has he no respect for our ways of life?” the host concluded gravely.

In a rare moment of unity, pundits on Fox News agreed. “We just need another 20 or 30 years in Syria, and we can accomplish our goals,” said a morning host on the right-leaning news station. “He didn’t even really give our soldiers a chance to settle in.”

“This is America, for goodness’ sake—land of the free and home of messing with other countries’ affairs. I don’t like criticizing the president, but he’s way off on this one,” he added.

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Don’t Hold Your Breath on US Troop Withdrawal from Syria, by Patrick Lawrence

Posted on December 20, 2018 | Leave a comment

President Trump preposes, the Deep State disposes. From Patrick Lawrence at consortiumnews.com:

It would be nice to think the president has final say on foreign policy, given the U.S. Constitution. But the misleading troop withdrawal announcement, followed by Trump’s boastful tweet, suggests the exact opposite, says Patrick Lawrence.

The announcement on Wednesday that the U.S. will withdraw all remaining troops from Syria within the next month looked at first like a rare victory for Donald Trump in his admittedly erratic opposition to senseless wars of adventure. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there,” the president tweeted with an unmistakable air of triumph.

Don’t get your hopes up. Just about everything in these initial reports is either wrong or misleading. One, the U.S. did not defeat the Islamic State: The Syrian Arab Army, aided by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah militias did. Two, hardly was ISIS the only reason the U.S. has maintained a presence in Syria. The intent for years was to support a coup against the Assad government in Damascus—in part by training and equipping jihadists often allied with ISIS. For at least the past six months, the U.S. military’s intent in Syria has been to counter Iranian influence.

Last and hardly least, the U.S. is not closing down its military presence in Syria. It is digging in for an indefinite period, making Raqqa the equivalent of the Green Zone in Baghdad. By the official count, there are 503 U.S. troops stationed in the Islamic State’s former capital. Unofficially, according to The Washington Post and other press reports, the figure is closer to 4,000—twice the number that is supposed to represent a “full withdrawal” from Syrian soil.

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