Trump Now Wants to Leave 200 US Troops Behind to Keep Denying Syria Its Oil Fields

Editor’s note: This is the most idiotic scheme you will hear this week. So dumb only the Trump admin could ever consider it. If leaving behind 2000 troops in Syria in alliance with the Kurds was a bad idea because that was not enough troops for force protection, then leaving behind just 200 after the Kurds have made a deal with Damascus is the stupidest US war plan since George Custer’s kamikaze run.

I almost can’t believe this plan originates with the Pentagon. If so that means there is nobody with a shred of integrity left there and the generals are now indistinguishable from neocons. Long gone are the days of Powell and Schwarzkopf who demanded that if US troops are asked to do something they be dispatched in such numbers and with such resources as to have an overwhelming advantage and be absolutely assured of victory.

This reeks of a Pentagon-neocon plan to keep the camel’s nose under the tent so they can come back at a later time. When fuel-starved Syria inevitably starts testing the 200 foreign soldiers sitting on its oil and tensions flare up the neocon-Pentagon cabal can corner Trump, telling him he either has to accept a humiliating defeat under pressure, or send in strong reinforcements, and wait for Trump’s vanity and fear of looking weak to do the rest.

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In puzzling comments earlier in the day, President Trump appeared to be declaring Syria a war about oil, and declaring victory, Tweeting “We have secured the Oil. Bringing soldiers home!”

The context wasn’t readily apparent, and it wasn’t true anyhow since comments from Defense Secretary Mark Esper made clear US troops are not coming home. Now, it turns out some US troops aren’t even leaving Eastern Syria, and the reason is the oil.

Sunday night’s report say Trump is now leaning toward a scheme to keep around 200 ground troops in eastern Syria, based on a plan the generals have sold him on. The 200 troops would have a”dual purpose” mission to fight ISIS and to keep Syria’s government from controlling Syria’s oil production facilities.

This seems a profoundly tall order for 200 US troops, and it’s not clear by what right the US would even claim its military is entitled to prevent Syria from controlling Syria’s own oil.

It makes more sense that this is a US goal, however, or at least a talking point, given Trump’s bragging about having “secured the oil” in Syria. Whether they can actually do this is another matter.

Where the US troops will be positioned is unclear, as the Pentagon is refusing to comment. at all on the matter. But for those who viewed going from Syria to Iraq as a big disappointment when with Trump talking about “bringing soldiers home,” having hundreds not even leaving Syria at all is an even bigger letdown.

If this turns out to be the case, this will be the second time in the past year that Trump has announced a military withdrawal from Syria, defended that plan in the face of criticism, and then ultimately bailed on it to keep troops in place with more military goals added all the time.

Source: Antiwar.com

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United States President Donald Trump is leaning in favour of a new Pentagon plan to keep a small contingent of American troops in eastern Syria, perhaps numbering about 200, to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and block the advance of Syrian government and Russian forces into the region’s coveted oil fields, a senior administration official said.

If Trump approves the proposal to leave a couple of hundred Special Operations forces in eastern Syria, it would mark the second time in 10 months that he has reversed his order to pull out nearly all US troops from the country.

Last December, Mr Trump directed 2,000 US troops to leave Syria immediately, only to relent later and approve a more gradual withdrawal.

The decision would also be the potential second major political reversal in a matter of days under pressure from his own party, after he rescinded last Saturday (Oct 19) a decision to host next year’s Group of Seven summit at his own resort.

Mr Trump has come under withering criticism from former military commanders, Democrats and even some of his staunchest Republican allies for pulling back US troops from Syria’s border with Turkey, clearing the way for a Turkish offensive that in nearly two weeks has killed scores of Syrian Kurdish fighters and civilians and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents.

A senior administration official said on Sunday that Mr Trump has since last week been considering a plan to leave a couple of hundred troops in north-east Syria, near the border with Iraq, for counterterrorism efforts. The official said it is a concept Mr Trump favours.

Three other administration and Defence Department officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential military planning, confirmed over the weekend that the option was being discussed among top US policymakers and commanders.

The senior administration official said it was highly likely that troops would be kept along the Iraqi border area – away from the ceasefire zone that Vice-President Mike Pence negotiated with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey last week. The main goal would be to prevent ISIS from re-establishing all or parts of its religious state, or caliphate, in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

A side benefit would be helping the Kurds keep control of oil fields in the east, the official said.

Mr Trump seemed to hint at this outcome in a message on Twitter on Sunday, saying: “We have secured the Oil.”

The senior administration official suggested that the President was balancing competing impulses: achieving the ultimate goal of bringing US forces home from Syria – part of a signature campaign promise to pull US troops from “endless wars” – and ensuring that efforts to contain and diminish ISIS continue. The order also could be heard as at least a partial answer to those who have criticised the President’s policy.

The officials indicated that Mr Trump could describe the continued deployment of the small contingent of troops as a thoughtful, reasonable way to help safeguard regional and US security without violating his campaign pledge.

The senior official insisted the President’s approach to the incursion ordered by Mr Erdogan had been mischaracterised and pushed back against a widely held public narrative that Mr Trump “greenlighted” the attack.

Critics of Mr Trump’s Syria policy have said the President, by telling Mr Erdogan that he would order US troops to pull back from positions along the border where they had fought alongside Syrian Kurds, essentially acquiesced to the Turkish offensive.

Mr Erdogan called Mr Trump on Oct 6 for the express purpose of informing him that Turkish forces planned to cross the border, the official said, and Mr Trump made it clear to him that it was not a good idea – and did not endorse the attack. He followed up on Oct 9 with a now-infamous letter to the Turkish leader.

The senior administration official said the US troops were withdrawn from the border area because Turkish forces were coming across into Syria, and that they were sitting in harm’s way, a rationale that Defence Secretary Mark T. Esper and General Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also have expressed in recent days.

Spokesmen for Mr Esper and Gen Milley declined on Sunday to comment on any options under discussion.

White House officials argue that leaving a small contingent of troops in eastern Syria is not a policy reversal because the goal of the original withdrawal was to protect lives. Unlike Mr Trump’s withdrawal order in December, administration officials say, this time was never about bringing troops home because they were always going to remain elsewhere in the region, in particular in Iraq.

But the White House has struggled to articulate a clear position on what the administration is trying to accomplish, as Mr Erdogan has clearly been undeterred and Mr Trump, who hates appearing weak, has shrugged off the fighting on his Twitter feed and in a campaign rally.

“It is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home. We will fight where it is to our benefit, and only fight to win. Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to,” Mr Trump said on Twitter on Oct 7.

“After defeating 100% of the ISIS Caliphate, I largely moved our troops out of Syria. Let Syria and Assad protect the Kurds and fight Turkey for their own land. I said to my Generals, why should we be fighting for Syria and Assad to protect the land of our enemy?” he said in another Twitter message on Oct 14.

The discussion over leaving a residual counterterrorism force in eastern Syria was unfolding as the bulk of the nearly 1,000 US forces now in Syria continued to withdraw Sunday. Mr Esper told reporters travelling with him to Afghanistan last Saturday that the troops would go to bases in western Iraq.

From there, Mr Esper said, US troops would “help defend Iraq” and “perform a counter-ISIS mission” – presumably carrying out periodic cross-border Special Operations raids and conducting armed drone strikes against Islamic State cells. ISIS has already sought to exploit the chaos in northern Syria to break out insurgents from Kurdish-run jails, to attack Kurdish fighters and to regain momentum overall.

“They will rally. These are resilient adversaries,” Gen Tony Thomas, who retired after serving as head of the military’s Special Operations Command, said of ISIS on the CBS programme Face The Nation on Sunday. “We’ve done nothing to knock down the ideology, and I think they’ll see this as certainly a respite, if not an opportunity to have a resurgence.”

The proposal to keep a counterterrorism force in eastern Syria resulted from the Defence Department directing the military’s Central Command in recent days to provide options for continuing the fight against Islamic State forces in Syria.

One of those options, which is said to be Trump’s choice, would keep a contingent of about 200 Special Operations forces at a few bases in eastern Syria, some near the Iraqi border, where they have been working alongside Syrian Kurdish partners.

Military officials also are expected to brief Mr Trump this week on that plan and of the other counterterrorism options – including keeping some troops in Syria and using other commandos based in Iraq. Mr Trump would need to approve any plan to leave forces in any part of Syria in addition to the about 150 in Al-Tanf, a small garrison in south-central Syria.

The commander of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, Mr Mazlum Kobani, whose fighters switched sides to join Syrian government forces after Mr Trump announced the US withdrawal, said last Saturday that despite the Turkish offensive, his troops had resumed counter-terrorism operations near Deir al-Zour.

US officials widely interpreted the comments as a signal to Washington that the Syrian Kurds were still willing to fight in partnership with the US against the Islamic State group in eastern Syria, despite their abandonment in other parts of the country.

Some lawmakers suggested that it may be too late to contain the damage done to the counterterrorism mission and, more broadly, US credibility overseas. Representative Will Hurd, a Republican from Texas, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, described the ceasefire agreement announced last Thursday as “terms of surrender” to Turkey.

Also appearing on Face The Nation, Mr Hurd, a former CIA officer, referred to Turkey, a Nato ally, as part of a group of American “enemies” and “adversaries” who will benefit from the ceasefire agreement.

“Our enemies and our adversaries like Iran, Russia, Turkey, they’re playing chess,” he said. “Unfortunately, this administration is playing checkers.”

Source: The New York Times