Just a few months into his presidency, Donald Trump ordered a missile strike against a Syrian airbase controlled by the Assad regime. The Republican was quick to make clear, however, that this wasn’t the start of a major shift in U.S. strategy. “We’re not going into Syria,” Trump declared in April.
Even at the time, it was an odd thing for him to say. After all, as readers may recall, not only had the president just launched a new military offensive against Bashar al Assad’s government — putting the United States on more than one side in Syria’s civil war — but there’s also the fact that American troops were already serving in Syria when Trump said we weren’t going into Syria.
The administration’s posture took yet another turn yesterday. The New York Times reported:
American troops will remain in Syria long after their fight against the Islamic State to ensure that neither Iran nor President Bashar al-Assad of Syria take over areas that have been newly liberated with help from the United States, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said on Wednesday. […]
Mr. Tillerson’s comments were the first time a senior Trump administration official pledged to keep American troops in Syria well after the current battle ends. They also marked another step in President 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.
Under the circumstances, “gradual evolution” seems quite charitable, because by any fair measure, the Trump administration’s current posture bears no resemblance to what the president said it would be.









