WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is dramatically scaling back U.S. goals in Syria as he pushes for a quick military withdrawal, Trump administration officials said Wednesday, abandoning plans to stay long-term to stabilize the country and prevent the Islamic State group from re-emerging.
Trump has given no formal order to pull out the 2,000 U.S. troops currently in Syria, nor offered a public timetable, other than to say the United States will pull out just as soon as the last remaining IS fighters can be vanquished. But Trump has signaled to his advisers that ideally, he wants all troops out within six months, according to three U.S. officials — a finale that would come shortly before the U.S. midterm elections.
In his haste to withdraw from Syria, Trump stands alone. The Pentagon, the State Department and CIA are all deeply concerned about the potential ramifications if the U.S. leaves behind a power vacuum in Syria, as are Israel, Arab leaders and other nations in the U.S.-led coalition that has fought IS in Iraq and Syria since 2014.
The president made clear his patience was running out as he met top national security aides on Tuesday. Yet the meeting concluded with no hard-and-fast deadline handed down, leaving Trump’s team struggling to deduce how fast is fast enough for Trump, according to officials briefed on the meeting.
The tense disagreement between Trump and his team has played out in chaotic and increasingly public fashion. On Tuesday, before the Syria meeting, Trump was telling television cameras he wanted to “get out,” just as the U.S. special envoy for fighting IS insisted “our mission isn’t over.” And on Wednesday, the White House issued a statement that declared the IS mission is “coming to a rapid end” but avoided specifics altogether.
Urging him to slow down, Trump’s aides have been emphasizing that IS fighters remain active in Syria, evidence that Trump’s own, publicly stated objective — the total defeat of IS — has yet to be met. Officials said the U.S. is tracking two pockets where IS remains viable — one in the Middle Euphrates Valley Region, another along the Iraq-Syria border. And despite the White House’s insistence that the group is “almost completely defeated,” a string of renewed IS attacks in recent weeks has raised fears about a resurgence.
Regardless of exactly when the troops leave, the decision to remove them as soon as possible has forced an immediate realignment of long-term U.S. objectives in the country, officials said.
With no military presence to ensure security for American personnel, the U.S. will have to call off other planned operations to clear land mines, restore basic services like water and electricity, and create political conditions needed to resolve Syria’s civil war.
Those efforts by U.S. diplomats and aid workers have been seen as critical to ensuring that Syria’s territory isn’t exploited in the future by IS remnants, other extremists or Iran. They formed a key component of Trump’s new Syria strategy, laid out by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a speech in January declaring it “vital for the United States to remain engaged in Syria.” But the speech, while formally approved by the White House, angered Trump, officials said, and the president fired Tillerson last month.
Instead, Trump will leave stabilizing Syria to other nations, in line with his long-stated view that the United States shoulders too much of global costs and should put “America first.”
“I want to get out,” Trump said. “I want to bring our troops back home. I want to start rebuilding our nation.”