A Syria's Withdrawal

Well, we know what smokescreen Trump is using to deflect from the atrocious legal news heading into the holidays: Donald Trump is declaring "victory" in Syria and planning an immediate and full withdrawal of all US forces there as a present to his buddy Vlad Putin.

The Trump administration is planning to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria, a defense official said on Wednesday, as President Trump declared victory against the Islamic State.

The president, in a message on Twitter, said the United States had "defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency."

His statement came shortly after news organizations reported that the White House had made a decision on Tuesday to abruptly remove the entire U.S. force of more than 2,000 troops from Syria and end the extended American ground campaign against the Islamic State.

Trump has long promised to conclude the campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and has questioned the value of costly and dangerous military missions overseas. But U.S. troops, working alongside Syrian partner forces, have struggled to eradicate remaining pockets of militants in central Syria. An abrupt American withdrawal would raise questions about whether the militants would be more easily able to regain strength.

The decision is the latest twist in American leaders' unsuccessful quest to craft a solution for Syria's long civil conflict, which has drawn in U.S. allies and adversaries including Turkey, Russia and Iran.

Both the Trump and Obama administrations have resisted becoming more involved in Syria's larger civil war but many senior officials - including at the State Department and Pentagon - have supported an ongoing troop presence in Syria until security conditions improve and a political solution can be reached.

Defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that has not yet been announced, said the withdrawal was expected to occur as quickly as possible and would affect the entire force of more than 2,000 U.S. service members. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Wednesday that U.S. troops would be removed from northeast Syria.

That's the cover story, all US troops will be out by the end of March 2019 because we "won".  The reality is that Donald Trump is handing Syria over to the Assad regime, Iran, and Vladimir Putin, who will now establish permanent military bases there to contain NATO forces in neighboring Turkey.  Combined with Russian influence in Cyprus off the Syrian coast, it's a major military foothold in the region.

And of course, ISIS isn't going anywhere.  It's a gift-wrapping by Trump to two of his fellow autocrats.  Merry Christmas Vlad, the last two years could not have gone better for neo-Soviet empire-building.  Turkey will have free rein to bomb Syrian Kurds on the border, Assad can finish off the rebels at his leisure (and with Russian help) and Iranian-backed ISIS can surround Iraq.  It'll get very bloody, very quickly, and a whole lot of people are going to die as a result.

2019 is going to be brutal for Syria if this happens, and the blowback will haunt us for decades.