Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he would withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria in a Twitter video where he quite possibly had his George W. Bush moment when he proclaimed victory over ISIS.
The move came as big time surprise to the national security community as well as allies alike. Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin wrote that it appeared as though Trump was “discarding his entire Syria and Iran strategy at a single stroke, giving up any and all U.S. influence in the region — and disregarding the advice of his top national security officials”
Meanwhile members of Trump’s own party lauded denounced the move.
Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger said that a defeated ISIS was “simply not true” while recent Trump senate ally Lindsey Graham mentioned that a “Withdrawal of this small American force in Syria would be a huge Obama-like mistake.”
Strategy? What Strategy?
As far as the a timeline or details surrounding the withdraw not much is known. The White House declined to offer up any idea on exactly how many troops remain in the region, if this will be a total withdraw or when the withdraw will begin. Likewise, the Pentagon is also short on details regarding Trump’s announcement as they’ve more than likely were taken off guard by the announcement.
In any sense, it’s estimated that there’s roughly 2,000 U.S. personnel in Syria with continued strikes against ISIS.
Okay what’s this really about?
Despite what someone like Lindsey Graham has to say on the matter who I’m sure would somehow find it justifiable to go to war with Canada if pressed, the surface move of Trump withdrawing from Syria is a good thing. Moreover if it wasn’t Donald Trump we were talking about you could maybe assume that the monetary resources freed up by no longer being engaged in some seemingly endless war overseas may in turn go towards helping the working class in the United States and the migrant crisis at the southern boarder.
But the fact of the matter is we’re dealing with Donald Trump.
Lets not forget that a direct withdraw of U.S. troops from Syria heavily favors the interest of Vladimir Putin who in turn is Bashar al-Assad‘s biggest ally. In addition to this too, on the day that Trump made this announcement he also did another solid for Putin by lifting sanctions on Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s aluminum company. Deripaska is a well-known Putin associate.
Anyways, it’s not that hard to connect the dots when you’re talking Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Syria.