In about-face from December, Trump “100%” endorses view that a small U.S. force is needed to protect military gains.
By Anne Gearan and Anne Gearan White House reporter Email Bio Follow Karoun Demirjian Karoun Demirjian Congressional reporter focusing on national security Email Bio Follow March 5 at 7:16 PM President Trump announced the complete, immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria with a tweet and a video in December, overruling his generals, alarming Congress and allies and causing his defense secretary and another top aide to quit in protest.
The missive marks a dramatic about-face from just 11 weeks ago, when Trump shocked allies and his own aides by abruptly declaring that “we have won” against the Islamic State terrorist group and “now it’s time for our troops to come back home.” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders had previously announced that a small U.S. force would remain in the war-torn country after all, but the letter amounts to Trump’s most definitive statement of his change of heart.
President Trump salutes on Jan. 19, 2019, as sailors move a coffin containing the remains of Scott A. Wirtz, a civilian and former Navy SEAL who was killed in a suicide bomb attack in Manbij, Syria. Graham and other lawmakers had nonetheless welcomed it as a sign that Trump had listened to concerns that a complete withdrawal would endanger fragile military gains against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” he wrote on Twitter.Later that day the White House posted a video in which Trump declared, “They’re all coming back and they’re coming back now. We won.” Trump’s abrupt move to exit fit with a pledge during the 2016 campaign to end U.S. involvement in what he called unwinnable Mideast wars, but it came with no warning or plan for how it would be done.
Trump’s reversal happened in fits and starts. He had previously shifted from saying the withdrawal would be immediate to saying it would be gradual and deliberate, although he denied that was a change.
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