WASHINGTON — U.S. troops will remain in Syria long after their fight against the Islamic State to ensure that neither Iran nor President Bashar Assad of Syria take over areas that have been newly liberated with help from the United States, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said Wednesday.
WASHINGTON — U.S. troops will remain in Syria long after their fight against the Islamic State to ensure that neither Iran nor President Bashar Assad of Syria take over areas that have been newly liberated with help from the United States, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said Wednesday.
Staying in Syria, Tillerson said, will help ensure that the Trump administration does not repeat what he described as the mistakes of former President Barack Obama, who withdrew troops from Iraq before the extremist threat was doused and failed to stabilize Libya after NATO airstrikes that led to the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi.
“We cannot allow history to repeat itself in Syria,” Tillerson said during a speech at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University near San Francisco. “ISIS has one foot in the grave, and by maintaining an American military presence in Syria until the full and complete defeat of ISIS is achieved, it will soon have two.”
ISIS is another name for the Islamic State.
There were roughly 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria last month, a mix of engineering units that build fortifications and Special Operations units that fight and train with local militias. Additionally, U.S. military contractors in Syria help demine recaptured areas as the Islamic State is pushed back.
Tillerson’s comments were the first time a senior Trump administration official pledged to keep U.S. troops in Syria well after the current battle ends. They also marked another step in President Donald Trump’s gradual evolution from a populist firebrand who promised to extricate the United States from foreign military entanglements to one who is grudgingly accepting many of the national security strategies he once derided.
Obama won the White House in 2008 in part by promising to wind down the war in Iraq, and agreed to only a limited role in the 2011 airstrikes in Libya. Those decisions have haunted the military officers who now serve in Trump’s Cabinet and, in turn, have led to the administration’s deepening military involvement in Afghanistan.
There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government, but it has consistently rejected any American interference as illegal and counterproductive.
