US President Donald Trump has declared that the United States will withdraw from war-torn Syria "very soon", without offering any other details.

"We will be coming out of Syria very soon. Let the other people take care of it now," Trump said on Thursday in a televised rally in the state of Ohio.

Trump complained that the US spends trillions of dollars in the Middle East, but get "nothing" in return.

He did not say whether the withdrawal also includes the US halting its air operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) fighters, who remain in Syria.

He told the Ohio workers that the American troops have "knocked the hell out of ISIS".

"We're going to have 100 percent of the caliphate, as they call it. Sometimes referred to as land. We're taking it all back quickly."

US troops in Syria are mostly stationed in the northern part of the country, and are embedded with the Kurdish YPG, its main ally in fighting ISIL.

Last week, the US State Department denied reports that it reached a deal with Turkey on the presence of American troops in the Kurdish city of Manbij.

Turkey, which recently launched a military operation inside Syria, considers the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and its armed-wing YPG to be "terrorist groups" with ties to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PKK has waged a decades-long armed fight against the Turkish state that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Ankara seels to expand its operation in Syria's northwestern Afrin region to other Kurdish-held areas further east, including Manbij, prompting fears for a possible confrontation with US troops.

Last week, Turkey said Ankara and Washington had reached a general agreement on Manbij and that the Turkish side is now waiting for its NATO ally to implement the deal.</s>Get the ebook today! "The Obama Scandals" is available on Amazon, just download the Kindle App to any device or read it online. Click here or on the image below now to purchase.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Trump’s unscripted remark this week about pulling out of Syria “very soon,” while at odds with his own policy, was not a one-off: For weeks, top advisers have been fretting about an overly hasty withdrawal as the president has increasingly told them privately he wants out, U.S. officials said.

Only two months ago, Mr. Trump’s aides thought they’d persuaded him that the U.S. needed to keep its presence in Syria open-ended — not only because the Islamic State group has yet to be entirely defeated, but also because the resulting power vacuum could be filled by other extremist groups or by Iran. Mr. Trump signed off on major speech in January in which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out the new strategy and declared “it is vital for the United States to remain engaged in Syria.”

But by mid-February, Mr. Trump was telling his top aides in meetings that as soon as victory can be declared against IS, he wanted American troops out of Syria, said the officials. Alarm bells went off at the State Department and the Pentagon, where officials have been planning for a gradual, methodical shift from a military-led operation to a diplomatic mission to start rebuilding basic infrastructure like roads and sewers in the war-wracked country.

The officials weren’t authorized to comment publicly and demanded anonymity.

Mr. Trump’s first public suggestion he was itching to pull out came in a news conference with visiting Australian Prime Minister Alastair Campbell on Feb. 23, when Mr. Trump said the U.S. was in Syria to “get rid of ISIS and go home.” On Thursday, in a domestic policy speech in Ohio, Trump went further.

“We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon — very soon, we’re coming out,” Mr. Trump said.

The public declaration caught U.S. national security agencies off-guard and unsure whether Mr. Trump was formally announcing a new, unexpected change in policy. Inundated by inquiries from journalists and foreign officials, the Pentagon and State Department reached out to the White House’s National Security Council for clarification.

The White House’s ambiguous response, officials said: Mr. Trump’s words speak for themselves.

“The mission of the Department of Defense to defeat ISIS has not changed,” said Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman.

Still, without a clear directive from the president, planning has not started for a withdrawal from Syria, officials said, and Mr. Trump has not advocated a specific timetable.

For Mr. Trump, who campaigned on an “America First” mantra, Syria is just the latest foreign arena where his impulse has been to limit the U.S. role. Like with NATO and the United Nations, Mr. Trump has called for other governments to step up and share more of the burden so that Washington doesn’t foot the bill. His administration has been crisscrossing the globe seeking financial commitments from other countries to fund reconstruction in both Syria and Iraq, but with only limited success.

Yet it’s unclear how Mr. Trump’s impulse to pull out could be affected by recent staff shake-ups on his national security team. Tillerson and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, both advocates for keeping a U.S. presence in Syria, were recently ousted, creating questions about the longevity of the plan Tillerson announced in his Stanford University speech in January. But Trump also replaced McMaster with John Bolton, a vocal advocate for U.S. intervention and aggressive use of the military overseas.

The abrupt change in the president’s thinking has drawn concern both inside and outside the United States.

Other nations that make up the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS fear that Mr. Trump’s impulse to pull out hastily would allow the notoriously resourceful IS militants to regroup, several European diplomats said. That concern has been heightened by the fact that U.S.-backed ground operations against remaining IS militants in Syria were put on hold earlier this month.

The ground operations had to be paused because Kurdish fighters who had been spearheading the campaign against IS shifted to a separate fight with Turkish forces, who began combat operations in the town of Afrin against Kurds who are considered by Ankara to be terrorists that threaten Turkey’s security.

“This is a serious and growing concern,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said this month.

Beyond just defeating IS, there are other strategic U.S. objectives that could be jeopardized by a hasty withdrawal, officials said, chiefly those related to Russia and Iran.

Israel, America’s closest Mideast ally, and other regional nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are deeply concerned about the influence of Iran and its allies, including the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, inside Syria. The U.S. military presence in Syria has been seen as a buffer against unchecked Iranian activity, and especially against Tehran’s desire to establish a contiguous land route from Iran to the Mediterranean coast in Lebanon.

An American withdrawal would also likely cede Syria to Russia, which along with Iran has been propping up Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces and would surely fill the void left behind by the U.S. That prospect has alarmed countries like France, which has historic ties to the Levant.

In calling for a withdrawal “very soon,” Trump may be overly optimistic in his assessment of how quickly the anti-IS campaign can be wrapped up, the officials said. Although the group has been driven from basically all of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and 95 percent of its former territory in Syria, the remaining five percent is becoming increasingly difficult to clear and could take many months, the officials said.

Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.</s>(AP Photo/Susan Walsh). President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, speaks about the election results, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Donald Trump joined President Barack Obama for their first meeting at the White House Thursday, a symbolic start to the transition of power to the nation's 45th president.

Obama was harshly critical of Trump throughout the campaign, blasting him as unfit to serve as a commander in chief. Trump spent years challenging the legitimacy of Obama's presidency, falsely suggesting Obama may have been born outside the United States.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, he'll wipe away much of what Obama has done during his eight years in office. The Republican president-elect, who will govern with Congress fully under GOP control, has vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law and dismantle the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

First lady Michelle Obama was meeting privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden prepared to see Vice President-elect Mike Pence later Thursday.

Trump traveled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House. Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organizations whose coverage he disliked from his events.

Also on Trump's schedule were meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump, was slow to endorse him and did not campaign with the nominee. Pence intended to join both meetings.

As scores of journalists waited to be admitted to the Oval Office to see Obama and Trump together, they saw White House chief of staff Denis McDonough walking along the South Lawn driveway with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. A handful of Trump aides trailed them.

The anticipated show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country. Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."

Republicans were emboldened by Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, giving the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"He just earned a mandate," Ryan said.

In an emotional concession speech, Clinton said her crushing loss was "painful and it will be for a long time" and acknowledged that the nation was "more divided than we thought."

Still, Clinton was gracious in defeat, declaring: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

In Washington, Trump's scant transition team sprang into action, culling through personnel lists for top jobs and working through handover plans for government agencies. A person familiar with the transition operations said the personnel process was still in its early stages, but Trump's team was putting a premium on quickly filling key national security posts. The person was not authorized to discuss details by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to an organizational chart for the transition obtained by The Associated Press, Trump was relying on experienced hands to help form his administration. National security planning was being led by former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who previously worked for the FBI. Domestic issues were being handled by Ken Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state.

Trump was expected to consider several loyal supporters for top jobs, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for attorney general or national security adviser and campaign finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker were also expected to be under consideration for foreign policy posts.

As president-elect, Trump is entitled to get the same daily intelligence briefing as Obama - one that includes information on U.S. covert operations, information gleaned about world leaders and other data gathered by America's 17 intelligence agencies. The White House said it would organize two exercises involving multiple agencies to help Trump's team learn how to respond to major domestic incidents.

If Trump makes good on his campaign promises, the nation stands on the brink of sweeping change in domestic and foreign policy. He's pledged to repeal Obama's health care law and pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran. He's vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily ban immigration from nations with terror ties.

It's unclear whether Trump will embrace many of the traditions of the presidency. He'll enter the White House owning his own private jet as well as a hotel just blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue.

AP writer Jonathan Lemire in New York contributed to this report.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's unscripted remark this week about pulling out of Syria "very soon," while at odds with his own policy, was not a one-off: For weeks, top advisers have been fretting about an overly hasty withdrawal as the president has increasingly told them privately he wants out, U.S. officials said.

Only two months ago, Trump's aides thought they'd persuaded him that the U.S. needed to keep its presence in Syria open-ended — not only because the Islamic State group has yet to be entirely defeated, but also because the resulting power vacuum could be filled by other extremist groups or by Iran. Trump signed off on major speech in January in which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out the new strategy and declared "it is vital for the United States to remain engaged in Syria."

But by mid-February, Trump was telling his top aides in meetings that as soon as victory can be declared against IS, he wanted American troops out of Syria, said the officials. Alarm bells went off at the State Department and the Pentagon, where officials have been planning for a gradual, methodical shift from a military-led operation to a diplomatic mission to start rebuilding basic infrastructure like roads and sewers in the war-wracked country.

Trump's first public suggestion he was itching to pull out came in a news conference with visiting Australian Prime Minister Alastair Campbell on Feb. 23, when Trump said the U.S. was in Syria to "get rid of ISIS and go home." On Thursday, in a domestic policy speech in Ohio, Trump went further.

"We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon — very soon, we're coming out," Trump said.

For Trump, who campaigned on an "America First" mantra, Syria is just the latest foreign arena where his impulse has been to limit the U.S. role. Like with NATO and the United Nations, Trump has called for other governments to step up and share more of the burden so that Washington doesn't foot the bill. His administration has been crisscrossing the globe seeking financial commitments from other countries to fund reconstruction in both Syria and Iraq, but with only limited success.

Yet it's unclear how Trump's impulse to pull out could be affected by recent staff shake-ups on his national security team. Tillerson and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, both advocates for keeping a U.S. presence in Syria, were recently fired, creating questions about the longevity of the plan Tillerson announced in his Stanford University speech in January. But Trump also replaced McMaster with John Bolton, a vocal advocate for U.S. intervention and aggressive use of the military overseas.

Other nations that make up the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS fear that Trump's impulse to pull out hastily would allow the notoriously resourceful IS militants to regroup, several European diplomats said. That concern has been heightened by the fact that U.S.-backed ground operations against remaining IS militants in Syria were put on hold earlier this month.

The ground operations had to be paused because Kurdish fighters who had been spearheading the campaign against IS shifted to a separate fight with Turkish forces, who began combat operations in the town of Afrin against Kurds who are considered by Ankara to be terrorists that threaten Turkey's security.

Israel, America's closest Mideast ally, and other regional nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are deeply concerned about the influence of Iran and its allies, including the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, inside Syria. The U.S. military presence in Syria has been seen as a buffer against unchecked Iranian activity, and especially against Tehran's desire to establish a contiguous land route from Iran to the Mediterranean coast in Lebanon.

An American withdrawal would also likely cede Syria to Russia, which along with Iran has been propping up Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces and would surely fill the void left behind by the U.S. That prospect has alarmed countries like France, which has historic ties to the Levant.

In calling for a withdrawal "very soon," Trump may be overly optimistic in his assessment of how quickly the anti-IS campaign can be wrapped up, the officials said. Although the group has been driven from basically all of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and 95 of its former territory in Syria, the remaining five is becoming increasingly difficult to clear and could take many months, the officials said.</s>March 30 (UPI) -- Two United States-led coalition personnel were killed in Syria and five others were wounded in a bomb attack, as President Donald Trump signaled ending U.S. military presence in the war-torn country.

Military officials said the attack occurred Thursday night with an improvised explosive device. The identities and nationalities of the dead service members were not initially known.

"The names of the deceased will be released at the discretion of the pertinent national authorities," The U.S. Central Command said in a statement. "Details pertaining to the incident are being withheld pending further investigation."

Meanwhile, Trump contacted top officials regarding Syria Thursday, claiming the United States would soon be gone from the Arab country.

"We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon," Trump said.

While giving an infrastructure speech in Ohio, the president said he wanted "other people" to take care of the Islamic State -- which nearly 2,000 U.S. forces have been helping to fight against in Syria.

"By the way, we're knocking the hell out of ISIS," Trump said in his speech. "We got to get back to our country where we belong, where we want to be."

The announcement runs contrary to statements made by Trump's top officials, including former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Both officials argued that a U.S. military presence must remain involved in the Syria war.

Mattis and Tillerson have also both said that U.S. military personnel would stay in Syria until the Islamic State was defeated and a new political process was underway.

"Trump has never believed it was worth investing significant American blood and treasure to try to sort out the problems of the Middle East," Phil Gordon, who oversaw Syria policy as a senior national security aide in the Obama White House, told Politico.

"And if that view is somewhat different from that of Tillerson and Mattis, it's even more different from the views of Pompeo and Bolton, who both put a premium on US leadership in the region, confrontation with Iran, and support overthrowing hostile, anti-American regimes like the one in Syria."</s>“We’re knocking the hell out of ISIS. We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon," the president said during an event in Ohio. "Let the other people take care of it now.” | Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo Trump wants ‘out’ of Syria ‘very soon,’ contradicting top officials 'We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon,' the president said Thursday, in what would be an apparent change in U.S. policy.

President Donald Trump said Thursday that the United States will end its military presence in Syria “very soon”—contradicting his secretaries of state and defense, who have said U.S. troops should stay in the Arab country for the foreseeable future.

Trump’s declaration was just the latest instance in which the president has publicly undercut or defied his foreign policy team, to the frustration and confusion of U.S. officials and America’s allies.

Story Continued Below

Speaking in Ohio Thursday, Trump boasted that U.S. is winning its battle against the Islamic State terrorist group, and vowed that once the fight is finished, American troops will leave Syria. The Pentagon has acknowledged a presence of about 2,000 troops in Syria, many of them Special Forces working closely with Kurdish and Arab militias against ISIS, which has lost nearly all its captured territory in the country over the past year.

“We’re knocking the hell out of ISIS. We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon,” the president said during an event in Ohio. “Let the other people take care of it now.”

“We got to get back to our country where we belong, where we want to be,” he added.

Morning Defense newsletter Sign up for Morning Defense, a daily briefing on Washington's national security apparatus. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Trump’s view runs contrary to the crux of a detailed speech on Syria by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whom Trump has since fired, as well as multiple comments by Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Both men have argued that the U.S. must remain involved in the country—not only to prevent ISIS's return but as part of a larger battle of influence underway there among multiple nations including Russia and Iran, which have backed the regime of Syrian president Bashar Assad.

CIA director Mike Pompeo, whom Trump has tapped to succeeed Tillerson, and Trump's incoming national security adviser John Bolton have both also suggested that the U.S. has interests in Syria that extend beyond militarily defeating ISIS.

"Trump has never believed it was worth investing significant American blood and treasure to try to sort out the problems of the Middle East," said Phil Gordon, who oversaw Syria policy as a senior national security aide in the Obama White House. "And if that view is somewhat different from that of Tillerson and Mattis, it’s even more different from the views of Pompeo and Bolton, who both put a premium on US leadership in the region, confrontation with Iran, and support overthrowing hostile, anti-American regimes like the one in Syria."

"People including regional allies who were expecting the new appointments to lead to greater U.S. military deployments in the region need to reckon with the views of the president himself," Gordon added.

Trump's comments are starkly different in tone from a speech Tillerson delivered in January that was widely interpreted as an articulation of U.S. strategy—not just the outgoing diplomat's personal views.

In it, Tillerson told an audience in California that the U.S. "will maintain a military presence in Syria focused on ensuring ISIS cannot re-emerge."

"We cannot make the same mistakes that were made in 2011 when a premature departure from Iraq allowed al-Qaeda in Iraq to survive and eventually morph into ISIS," he added.

As a candidate, Trump often made the same point—blaming then-President Barack Obama for the scourge of ISIS on the grounds that Obama had been too hasty in withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

But Tillerson also expressed broader goals, including preventing Iranian-backed militia groups from taking over Syrian territory, and maintaining influence over any potential peace settlement for the country’s civil war. Israel strongly supports a continued U.S. challenge to Iranian influence within the country.

Tillerson’s Syria policy was developed with the consultation and blessing of Defense Secretary James Mattis, who has repeatedly said the Pentagon's mission in Syria will continue—not only to keep ISIS from regenerating but to influence peace negotiations there. “We’re not just going to walk away right now before the Geneva process has traction,” Mattis said in November, a reference to peace talks that have occurred sporadically for several years in the Swiss city.

In January, Mattis told reporters that more diplomats, under military protection, would be headed to the country for stabilization and rebuilding efforts.

Pompeo has also suggested that the U.S. mission in Syria should extend beyond the fight against ISIS. Asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" earlier this month whether the U.S. mission in Syria should "change to counter Iran and its proxies," Pompeo declined to comment on policy, but complained that the Obama administration had given Iran "a free pass" inside Syria and said that "we're working diligently to find the right approach to counter the incredible spread of Iranian hegemony throughout the Middle East."

In July, Bolton argued that the "U.S.-led coalition... needs to thwart Iran’s ambitions as ISIS falls" in Syria—although he also wrote that the U.S. "has carried too much of the burden for too long" in Syria.

Syria has been riven by a civil war that began in spring 2011. Rebel groups have been fighting to overthrow Assad, who has been backed by Russia and Iran. The Islamic State exploited the chaos to grab large amounts of territory in Syria and Iraq, leading the U.S. to resume military operations in Iraq and carry out strikes against the group in Syria.

Today, the battle space has grown highly complicated, involving not only Syrians, Kurds Iranians and Russians but more recently Turkish forces who are battling the Kurds.

A White House spokeswoman had no immediate comment. The Pentagon referred POLITICO to the White House. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"There has always in fact been a contradiction at the heart of Trump’s Middle East policy, which is that he supports vigorously confronting Iran and ISIS but also limiting American spending and fighting at the same time," Gordon said. "But if it’s one or the other and it looks like if forced to choose, he’ll keep the U.S. out."

Cristiano Lima contributed to this report.</s>In a momentous announcement at an event in Ohio on Thursday, Donald Trump said, “We’re knocking the hell out of ISIS. We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.”

What lends credence to the statement that the Trump administration will soon be pulling 2,000 US troops out of Syria – mostly Special Forces assisting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces – is that President Trump had recently announced to sack the National Security Advisor Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.

McMaster represented the institutional logic of the deep state in the Trump administration and was instrumental in advising Donald Trump to escalate the conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria. He had advised President Trump to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan from 8,400 to 15,000. And in Syria, he was in favor of the Pentagon’s policy of training and arming 30,000 Kurdish border guards to patrol Syria’s northern border with Turkey.

Both the decisions have spectacularly backfired on the Trump administration. The decision to train and arm 30,000 Kurdish border guards had annoyed the Erdogan administration to an extent that Turkey mounted Operation Olive Branch in the Kurdish-held enclave of Afrin in Syria’s northwest on January 20.

After capturing Afrin on March 18, the Turkish armed forces and their Free Syria Army proxies have now cast their eyes further east on Manbij where the US Special Forces are closely cooperating with the Kurdish YPG militia, in line with the long-held Turkish military doctrine of denying the Kurds any Syrian territory west of River Euphrates.

More significantly, however, the US bombers and Apache helicopters struck a contingent of Syrian government troops and allied forces in Deir al-Zor on February 7 that reportedly killed and wounded dozens of Russian military contractors working for the private security firm, the Wagner group.

In order to understand the reason why the US brazenly attacked the Russian contractors, we need to keep the backdrop of seven-year-long Syrian conflict in mind. Washington has failed to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. After the Russian intervention in September 2015, the momentum of the battle has shifted in favor of the Syrian government and Washington’s proxies are on the receiving end in the conflict.

Washington’s policy of nurturing militants against the Syrian government has given birth to the Islamic State and myriads of jihadist groups that have carried out audacious terror attacks in Europe during the last three years. Out of necessity, Washington had to make the Kurds the centerpiece of its policy in Syria. But on January 20, its NATO-ally Turkey mounted Operation Olive Branch against the Kurds in the northwestern Syrian canton of Afrin.

In order to save its reputation as a global power, Washington could have confronted Turkey and pressured it to desist from invading Afrin. But it chose the easier path and vented its frustration on the Syrian government forces in Deir al-Zor which led to the casualties of scores of Russian military contractors hired by the Syrian government.

Another reason why Washington struck Russian contractors working in Syria was that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which are mainly comprised of Kurdish YPG militias – had reportedly handed over the control of some areas east of Euphrates River to Deir al-Zor Military Council (DMC), which is the Arab-led component of SDF, and had relocated several battalions of Kurdish YPG militias to Afrin and along Syria’s northern border with Turkey in order to defend the Kurdish-held areas against the onslaught of Turkish armed forces and allied Free Syria Army (FSA) militias.

Syrian forces with the backing of Russian contractors took advantage of the opportunity and crossed the Euphrates River to capture an oil refinery located east of Euphrates River in the Kurdish-held area of Deir al-Zor. The US Air Force responded with full force, knowing well the ragtag Arab component of SDF – mainly comprised of local Arab tribesmen and mercenaries to make the Kurdish-led SDF appear more representative and inclusive – was simply not a match for the superior training and arms of Syrian troops and Russian military contractors, consequently causing a massacre in which scores of Russian citizens lost their lives.

It would be pertinent to note here that regarding the Syria policy, there is a schism between the White House and the American deep state led by the Pentagon. After Donald Trump’s inauguration as the US president, he has delegated operational-level decisions in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to the Pentagon.

The way the US officials are evading responsibility for the incident, it appears the decision to strike pro-government forces in Deir al-Zor that included Russian contractors was taken by the operational commander of the US forces in Syria and the White House was not informed until after the strike.

Notwithstanding, it bears mentioning that unlike dyed-in-the-wool globalists and “liberal interventionists,” like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who cannot look past beyond the tunnel vision of political establishments, it appears that the protectionist Donald Trump not only follows news from conservative mainstream outlets, like the Fox News, but he has also been familiar with alternative news perspectives, such as Breitbart’s, no matter how racist and xenophobic.

Thus, Donald Trump is fully aware that the conflict in Syria is a proxy war initiated by the Western political establishments and their regional Middle Eastern allies against the Syrian government. He is also mindful of the fact that militants have been funded, trained and armed in the training camps located in Turkey’s border regions to the north of Syria and in Jordan’s border regions to the south of Syria.

According to the last year’s March 31 article [1] for the New York Times by Michael Gordon, the US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and the recently sacked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had stated on the record that defeating the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq was the top priority of the Trump administration and the fate of Bashar al-Assad was of least concern to the new administration.

Under the previous Obama administration, the evident policy in Syria was regime change. The Trump administration, however, looks at the crisis in Syria from an entirely different perspective because Donald Trump regards Islamic jihadists as a much bigger threat to the security of the US.

In order to allay the concerns of Washington’s traditional allies in the Middle East, the Trump administration conducted a cruise missiles strike on al-Shayrat airfield in Homs governorate on April 6 last year after the chemical weapons strike in Khan Sheikhoun. But that isolated incident was nothing more than a show of force to bring home the point that the newly elected Donald Trump is an assertive and powerful president.

Finally, Karen De Young and Liz Sly made another startling revelation in the last year’s March 4 article [2] for the Washington Post: “Trump has said repeatedly that the US and Russia should cooperate against the Islamic State, and he has indicated that the future of Russia-backed Assad is of less concern to him.”

Thus, the interests of all the major players in Syria have evidently converged on defeating Islamic jihadists, and the Obama-era policy of regime change has been put on the back burner. And after the recent announcement of complete withdrawal of US troops from Syria by President Trump, it appears that we are approaching the endgame in Syria, an event as momentous as the Fall of Saigon in 1975, which will mark a stellar military victory for Vladimir Putin.

1- White House Accepts ‘Political Reality’ of Assad’s Grip on Power in Syria:

2- Pentagon plan to seize Raqqa calls for significant increase in U.S. participation:

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.</s>Reuters Video: Trump says US forces will leave Syria ‘very soon’

US President Donald Trump said the US would be withdrawing forces from Syria ‘very soon’ at an event in Ohio. — Reuters</s>US President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that US forces would pull out of Syria “very soon” and lamented what he said was Washington’s waste of $7 trillion in Middle East wars.

In a populist address to industrial workers in Ohio, Trump said US forces were close to securing all of the territory that the Islamic State jihadist group once claimed.

“We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now,” he promised, to applause.

Trump did not say who the others were who might take care of Syria, but Russia and Iran have sizable forces in the country to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

“Very soon -- very soon we’re coming out. We’re going to have 100% of the caliphate, as they call it -- sometimes referred to as ‘land’ -- taking it all back quickly, quickly,” he said.

“But we’re going to be coming out of there real soon. Going to get back to our country, where we belong, where we want to be.”

The United States has more than 2,000 military personnel in eastern Syria, working with local militia groups to defeat the extremist Islamic State group while trying to keep out of Syria’s broader civil war.

Trump’s eagerness to quit the conflict flies in the face of a new US Syria strategy announced in January by then secretary of state Rex Tillerson -- who has since been sacked.

Tillerson argued that US forces must remain engaged in Syria to prevent IS and al Qaeda from returning and to deny Iran a chance “to further strengthen its position in Syria”.

In a speech at Stanford University, he also warned that “a total withdrawal of American personnel at this time would restore Assad and continue his brutal treatment against his own people”.

But Tillerson has gone after being dismissed in a tweet and Trump, who increasingly makes foreign policy announcements without seeking the advice of US generals or diplomats, wants out.

“We spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. And you know what we have for it? Nothing,” Trump declared, promising to focus future US spending on building jobs and infrastructure at home.
U.S. President Donald Trump, during a speech on his infrastructure plan in Richland County, Ohio, announces U.S. forces will be leaving Syria "very soon."