December 20, 2018
The Dangers of Military Mission Creep in Syria
Washington must leave Damascus before it searches for new monsters to destroy and other reasons to stay.
by Daniel R. DePetris
President Donald Trump was never especially enthralled with the notion of keeping several thousand U.S. troops in Eastern Syria over the long-term. Last April, he suggested to a roomful of his supporters that the United States would be withdrawing from the country “very soon,†a public declaration that blindsided the national-security bureaucracy and caused painful heartburn in the bowels of the Pentagon. After days of speculation, Trump agreed to provide his generals with a little more time to wrap up the campaign against the Islamic State. The president didn’t necessarily want to make that decision, but he has found it difficult not to defer to the military professionals with three or four stars on their lapels.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/dangers-military-mission-creep-syria-39412
