Trump Courts Catastrophe in Syria

[mystery-ak]

Trump Courts Catastrophe in Syria

Islamic State is not defeated, and a U.S. withdrawal would be an abandonment of Kurdish allies.
By Eli Lake
December 19, 2018, 12:35 PM CST

President Donald Trump is on the verge of making a spectacularly bad decision. The White House is soon expected to announce its plans to remove the 2,000 U.S. troops now serving in northeastern Syria.

This is not totally unexpected. Trump ran for president in part on the idea of smashing the Islamic State, but he also said there was no point in trying to stabilize the country after the terrorists were defeated. Since getting elected, he has regularly signaled that its time for U.S. forces to leave Syria. In March he promised the U.S. would be getting out of Syria “like, very soon.” In June, he floated a plan for an all-Arab army to replace the U.S. in a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

Nonetheless, special-operations forces have remained in Syria, where they train and fight alongside largely Kurdish troops. Together they coordinate air strikes against the remaining pockets of Islamic State fighters and serve as a buffer between Turkey and Kurdish militias.

This time it looks like Trump is serious. To start, as the Wall Street Journal has reported, the U.S. military has already begun telling its partners to prepare for a U.S. withdrawal. Instead of tamping down the news, Trump himself tweeted Wednesday: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”

more
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-19/trump-s-syria-withdrawal-plan-courts-catastrophe

[skeeter]

Remember when Bloomberg and the other media experts sounded the alarm over Obama's premature, ill advised withdrawal from Iraq that led to the rise of ISIS in the first place? And how roundly they criticized him afterwards when it became clear what a disaster it turned out to be?

[Fishrrman]

"islamic state is not defeated, and a U.S. withdrawal would be an abandonment of Kurdish allies."

isis is probably about as "defeated" as it's gonna be.

But that doesn't matter.
No.
It really doesn't.

Because... even if isis IS soundly defeated, it's only a matter of time before some other group, under some other name, rises up to take its place.

isis - like al qaeda before it -- like the taliban, too -- is but "this season's crop" of bad apples.
Get rid of them, and "next season" a new crop will arise.
And on, and on, and on. As it has been for 1,400 years.
Because it's not "the apples" that we are fighting.
It's "the tree".

[DCPatriot]

Remember when Bloomberg and the other media experts sounded the alarm over Obama's premature, ill advised withdrawal from Iraq that led to the rise of ISIS in the first place? And how roundly they criticized him afterwards when it became clear what a disaster it turned out to be?

Exactly my point, @skeeter