Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trump announces U.S. to withdraw troops from Syria
President declares ISIS defeated; move said to worry Pentagon officials
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has ordered a rapid withdrawal of all 2,000 U.S. ground troops from Syria within 30 days, declaring the four-year American-led war against the Islamic State militant group as largely won, officials said Wednesday.
“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” the president said in a Twitter post Wednesday morning, using an acronym for the Islamic State. He offered no details on his plans for the military mission, nor a larger strategy, in Syria.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that “we have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign.”
But Pentagon officials who had sought to talk the president out of the decision as late as Wednesday morning argued that such a move would betray Kurdish allies who could find themselves under attack in a military offensive now threatened by Turkey.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has fought alongside U.S. troops
in Syria. One U.S. official said Kurdish leaders were informed of the president’s decision Wednesday morning.
“At this time, we continue to work by, with and through our partners in the region,” Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a brief statement.
A second official said the withdrawal of troops would be phased out over several weeks and that the U.S.-led airstrike campaign against the Islamic State in Syria, which began in 2014, would continue. That official said the military hoped to rely on Kurdish fighters on the ground to help with targeting.
Officials discussed the emerging policy on condition of anonymity before any announcement from the White House.
Emerging from a Senate conference lunch with Vice President Mike Pence and other Republican senators, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina criticized the decision to withdraw troops from Syria.
“A lot of us were blindsided,” Graham said, likening the withdrawal to “Iraq all over again” — a reference to President Barack Obama’s decision to end the military mission in Iraq in 2011. The departure of U.S. troops there allowed the strengthening and spread of the Islamic State.
“If Obama had done this, all of us would be furious,” Graham said. “If Obama had done this, we’d be going nuts right now: ‘How weak, how dangerous.’” He said he wanted Congress to hold hearings about the consequences of the decision, and he asked why lawmakers were not notified of Trump’s order.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said the withdrawal would be a “grave error with broader implications” beyond the fight against the Islamic State.
In a series of meetings and conference calls over the past several days, sources said, Defense Secretary James Mattis and other senior national security officials have tried to dissuade Trump from a wholesale troop withdrawal, arguing that the significant national security policy shift would essentially cede foreign influence in Syria to Russia and Iran at a time when U.S. policy calls for challenging both countries.
Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive officer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who has closely advised the Trump administration on Iran policy, said that “pulling U.S. troops out of Syria would be a gift to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and to the mullahs in Tehran. And it would be a disastrous gift for the region.”
Russia has long demanded U.S. forces withdraw from Syria, arguing that they’re in the Middle Eastern country illegally because they lack the consent of President Bashar Assad’s regime. Along with Iran, Russia is a principal ally of Assad’s. Putin sent in Russian forces to help tip the war between Assad’s forces and U.S.-backed rebels that began in 2011.
Russian officials expressed cautious enthusiasm for Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria, with some suggesting the news was too good to be true.
“If the Americans really do pull their troops out, I think that would only help stabilize the situation in Syria,” the Interfax news service cited Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy chairman of the international affairs committee in the upper house of Russia’s parliament, as saying.
“The withdrawal of American troops from Syria will always be welcomed in Moscow,” said Elena Suponina, a Middle East expert in the Russian capital. There was no immediate response from the Kremlin or the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who remains concerned about Iranian efforts in the area, reacted in noncommittal fashion after talking with Trump by telephone.
“This is, of course, an American decision,” he said. Israel will learn of the timetable and manner of withdrawal, he said, and no matter what, “we will safeguard the security of Israel and protect ourselves from this arena.”
WIDER IMPLICATIONS
Trump has long pressed the military to withdraw from Syria, saying in April that he would make a decision “very quickly.”
“I want to get out, I want to bring the troops back home, I want to start rebuilding our nation,” Trump said at a news conference at the time. He added that “our primary mission” of fighting the Islamic State terrorist group is “almost completed.”
But Pentagon officials have argued that abandoning the U.S.-backed Kurdish allies will hamper future efforts by the United States to gain the trust of local fighters, from Afghanistan to Yemen to Somalia.
In addition, the Islamic State has not been fully vanquished from the small territory it controls on the Syrian-Iraqi border. The Islamic State has held that territory for more than a year in the face of attacks by U.S.-allied forces and has used it as a launchpad to carry out attacks in Iraq and Syria.
Earlier this month, Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, said continuing to train the Syrian Democratic Forces, as U.S. troops are doing, “will take some time.”
“The military mission is the enduring defeat of ISIS,” McGurk told reporters Dec. 11. “We have obviously learned a lot of lessons in the past, so we know that once the physical space is defeated, we can’t just pick up and leave. So we’re prepared to make sure that we do all we can to ensure this is enduring. Nobody is declaring a mission accomplished.”
Two weeks ago, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. still has a long way to go in training the Syrian Democratic Forces to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State and stabilize the country. He said it will take 35,000 to 40,000 local troops in northeastern Syria to maintain security over the long term, but only about 20 percent of them have been trained.
Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, said in September that the U.S. would keep a military presence in Syria as long as Iran is active there. “We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders, and that includes Iranian proxies and militias,” he said.
James Stavridis, a former Navy admiral who served as top NATO commander, tweeted Wednesday that “Pulling troops out of Syria in an ongoing fight is a big mistake. Like walking away from a forest fire that is still smoldering underfoot. Big winner is Iran, then Russia, than Assad. Wrong move.”
Even after Trump’s announcement, Pentagon spokesman Dana White said that “the campaign against ISIS is not over.” But she offered little insight on the withdrawal, saying in a statement that “for force protection and operational security reasons we will not provide further details.”
In recent days, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey vowed to launch a new offensive against the Kurdish troops that the United States equipped to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.