Tyler Durden
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
update 2: A troop withdrawal appears already underway after a Pentagon official said it would happen “quickly”.
White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders has issued a formal statement on troop withdrawal from Syria: “We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign.”
Moments after President Trump confirmed reports of US pullout via Twitter saying “We have defeated ISIS in Syria,” Pentagon officials said the president “ordered full US troop withdrawal from Syria,” and that this will be “rapid” — apparently already beginning, per a Reuters breaking report: “All U.S. State Department personnel are being evacuated from Syria within 24 hours – official.”
The full White House statement issued Wednesday late morning:
Kaitlan Collins on Twitter: “Sarah Sanders: “We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign…” pic.twitter.com/1V00r4WUyP / Twitter”
Sarah Sanders: “We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign…” pic.twitter.com/1V00r4WUyP
Meanwhile Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. has vowed to continue combating Iran in Syria if US forces leave. Russia has alternately said “Syria will stabilize” should the thousands of American troops stationed there exit.
***
update: It’s official, within an hour after the first headline the president tweeted “We have defeated ISIS in Syria”and in reference to reports of a planned US troop withdrawal from Syria which unnamed officials say is to be initiated “immediately,” he added that the terror group’s defeat was “my only reason for being there”.
Donald J. Trump on Twitter: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency. / Twitter”
We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.
Minutes after the WSJ first broke the story, The Washington Post confirmed the following through a defense official:
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that has not yet been announced, said the decision would include the entire force of more than 2,000 U.S. service members. It was made on Tuesday, the official said.
President Trump has long promised to conclude the campaign against the Islamic State and has questioned the value of costly and dangerous military missions overseas.
***
The WSJ just reported a monumental and historic reversal in White House policy on Syria, revealing Wednesday morning the Pentagon is preparing to withdraw all forces from northeastern Syria “immediately”:
In an abrupt reversal, the U.S. military is preparing to withdraw its forces from northeastern Syria, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday, a move that throws the American strategy in the Middle East into turmoil.
U.S. officials began informing partners in northeastern Syria of their plans to begin immediately pulling American forces out of the region where they have been trying to wrap up the campaign against Islamic State, the people said.
The WSJ notes the complete 180 reversal in policy, which just days ago was reiterated by officials as an “indefinite” American presence in Syria in order to “counter Iran” while bolstering Kurdish and Arab SDF forces in the East (the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces), comes following a phone call last week between President Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
For the past week Erdogan has threatened to launch a full-scale cross border assault on US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria, which Turkey has long considered an terrorist extension of the outlawed PKK. This would potentially bring American troops and advisers under fire, who’ve found themselves in the awkward position since entering Syria of training Syrian Kurdish militias on the one hand, and coordinating broadly with a NATO ally on the other.
Perhaps Trump finally took full stock of the fact that the prior planned “indefinite” presence of some 4000 American troops was recipe for a quagmire sure to be Washington’s next Afghan or Iraq style “endless war”?
As one recent intelligence study put it: “The prospect of US being militarily involved in Syria, caught in middle of one of most complex conflicts in recent memory, with shifting objectives & ambiguous endgame, has been met with congressional indifference and public apathy.”
Will America finally exit Syria? Is Trump belatedly making good on his campaign promises?
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
If the US is going to attack Iran it would not want it’s troops in Syria to be easily hit in retaliation.
That’s not a real problem for them because the USofT as bases around Iran anyway…
You may have forgotten but China and Russia vowed to defend Iran. The US are out os Syria, because they lost and everybody knows that, In the first few years of their illegal presence they assisted ISIS and Turkey in stealing Syrian Oil, only when the Russians bombed the hell out of the convoys and actually won the war against ISIS (in general), did it even contemplate leaving – please also remember that the US has trained up 50,000 equivalent vermin to ISIS, to continue fighting.
CIA terrorists are going to have a busy Christmas week with the preparations for another FAKE CHEM ATTACK!
Hezbollah knows how to end unwanted US presence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombings
Guess US finally realized too that their continued unwanted presence amounted to invitation for a repeat.
Ah yes, the standard Pentagon method of ending its unwinnable wars: declare victory and go home. As they did in Vietnam.
So who’s complaining? What’s not to like about declaring victory and going home? Going home is all that matters.
*Yes but well done Syria, Russia and Iran for actually being the real, true and only victors against the lying ZioAmerican war criminals and all their terrorists brands, including ISIS.
+ the Gulf war I and II.
America aren’t withdrawing. The are redeploying.
SIDELINE:
If America redeploy, where will they redeploy to next (and at what odds)
Venezuela (5:1)
Another Middle Eastern Country (10:1)
South China Sea (6:1)
the Balkins (25:1)
Ukraine (50:1)
Cuba (100:1)
Q: Where are we NOT deploying?
A: Syria, Yemen, Korea.
3 down and many more to go, but it’s a start.
They’ll find an excuse to help the saudi’s in Yemen. They’d love to get at North Korea and are unofficially deployed in the South. As for Syria they know they’re on a hiding to nothing and likely need their ‘resources’ elsewhere as the state of play with Russia and other interests have shifted to new fronts. Iran is now a little safer (relatively) with Syria as a Buffer, but with the EU in crisis and the Balkins getting hotter, not to mention the Ukraine being the currant thorn in Russia’s side, I suspect the US can see a wound forming… Read more »
Another part of Syria as FSA sickos – probably Idlib.
AFRICA + Afghanistan.
*All the Zio-lying illegal-invading false-flagging terrorist-abetting civilian-murdering resource-thieving ZOG-Yank coward-pervert war criminals have ever sneakily done is the sly opposite to what they say.
I do not believe that US troops will really leave Syria. They are a pest, once there, for always there. If they really leave, they will order ISIS to continue the dirty job of chemical attacks, and other cowardly murdering of Syrian patriots.
And fellow illegal-invader, terrorist-abettor, civilian-murderer, war-criminal, liar-thief Turkey and its slyly remorphed ISIS/Nusra/Sham/etc FSA sicko terrorist armies will continue to sneakily assist.
Tass reports: “Militants shell Syria’s Latakia, Hama, Aleppo over past 24 hours”
More:
http://tass.com/world/1036895
Who are these so-called militants? US proxies continuing the dirty work of the US troops who are “going home”. The US disseminates fake news, as always. Not a single word of what the write or say is true. They are pathological liars.
Trump has tried to order US troop withdrawal from Syria before, only to be undermined/over-ruled by the deep state who line up expert govt officials to make statements to the contrary. Come on guys, do you really believe Trump conducts US policy? 100 days is a long time, I suspect in 200 days time the anglozionists – with false flags or otherwise – will still have troops in Syria working hard to destroy and destabilise any peace. I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist. Anglozionists always double down, always.
Maybe it is more to the point that it is becoming more difficult, selling weapons to the enemy and then sending your troops against them.Maybe better to sell weapons and make your profits.
White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders has issued a formal statement on troop withdrawal from Syria: “We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign.”
No they are not because he is replacing them with uncontrollable paid mercenaries just like he is doing in Afghanistan that way the United States is no longer responsible if they commit war crimes. George W. Bush did it in Iraq using “Blackwater Security aka Academi Company now” until Iraq kicked them out for killing incent civilians.
The Syrian Government does not believe the US troops will pull out of their country. TASS reports what the Syrian Ambassador to the UN said:
Syria has doubts about US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from the country’s territory, Syria’s UN Amabassador Bashar Ja’afari has told reporters.
“At first we need to see if this decision is genuine or not,” he said. ‘The American decision was referring us to a delay of between 60 and 100 days so let is wait and see if this decision is being implemented genuinely.”
More:
http://tass.com/world/1037280
There is no “victory over ISIS” because militants keep shelling Syrian cities. Who are these militants? Of course, it is Daesh and ISIS! TASS reports:
Three Syrian soldiers wounded in shellings by militants — Russian reconciliation center
World December 21, 23:34 UTC+3
Militants operating in the Idlib de-escalation zone shelled settlements in the Latakia and Hama governorates, as well as parts of the Aleppo city…
More:
http://tass.com/world/1037468
While it’s good to see the US withdrawal, it’s incredibly insulting to see the US claim credit for other people’s work. ISIS is gone not because of anything the US did, but because of the efforts by the Syrian army, Russia and the Iranian militias.
The US did everything they could to fund and help the terrorists. Trump is merely cutting their losses after the ruthless Obama regime change scheme failed.
True! And by the way ISIS is still active in Syria, shelling cities. SANA reports about it (Syrian-Arab News Agency).
US Americans are big liars. As soon as they open their mouth, a lie comes out.