U.S. ends funding for Syria recovery projects
WASHINGTON — Making good on President Donald Trump’s stated desire to reduce the U.S. role in Syria, the State Department announced Friday it was eliminating $230million in funding for “stabilization” projects in the war-ravaged country.
The slack will be made up by donations from other countries who have agreed to provide $300 million, State Department officials said. One-third of that money will come from Saudi Arabia.
“Working with Congress, the State Department will redirect these funds to support other key foreign policy priorities,” spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.
She said the decision “does not represent any lessening of U.S. commitment to our strategic goals in Syria.”
The Trump administration long ago shifted U.S. goals in Syria away from removing President Bashar Assad and ending the civil war to a more limited, concerted fight against the militant group Islamic State, which had taken over large parts of the country and neighboring Iraq.
Nauert briefed reporters in a conference call along with Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy for the coalition to defeat Islamic State, and David Satterfield, acting assistant secretary of state for the Middle East.
Trump previously cut off aid to some of the militias fighting Assad’s forces and ended stabilization projects in northwest Syria as he attempts to extricate the U.S. from the 7-year-old multisided conflict.
Pentagon officials have argued against beating too hasty a retreat. U.S. forces there, in addition to fighting Islamic State, are working to train and defend Kurdish forces against Turkey, protecting oil fields and keeping tabs on Russian and Iranian groups also in Syria.
“We are doing a lot more militarily in Syria than just fighting (Islamic State), no matter what the Trump administration says,” said Robert Ford in a podcast for the Middle East Institute, where he is a senior fellow. Ford left Syria in 2014 as Washington’s last ambassador there.
Nauert, McGurk and Satterfield, however, contended that the focus was on Islamic State.
McGurk said that Islamic State lost 90 percent of its conquered territory and has not returned, but that a final offensive to drive out remnants looms.
“We’re remaining in Syria,” McGurk said. “Thefocus is the enduring defeat of (Islamic State). … This mission is ongoing and is not over.”
Trump has made clear, however, that broader reconstruction will not be Washington’s job. In several public comments, he has said he would let “others take care of the problem.”
Nauert said that neither “needs-based” humanitarian aid nor support for the so-called White Helmets civilian rescue teams would be affected.
She also announced that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has appointed retired veteran diplomat James Jeffrey to be a special representative for “Syrian engagement.” Jeffrey, a former ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, will focus on the diplomatic attempt to find a political transition out of Syria’s conflict, through talks in Geneva.
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, whojoined with Republicans to appropriate the $230 million earlier this year, said the administration decision to scuttle it was a shortsighted move with consequences potentially harmful to national security.
“I am dismayed to see President Trump sprinting down the path of abdicating American leadership on the global stage,” said Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee.
“Worseyet, heis rolling out the red carpet for Russia and Iran who will seize the vacuum of U.S. presence,” Menendez added, to “make Syria a persistently unstable, terrorist and criminal nexus that will continue to threaten regional stability and the security of Israel.”