US President Donald Trump said he has no plans to withdraw American forces from Iraq, a week after announcing a surprise pullout of troops from Syria and ordering the Pentagon to bring
Paul Sonne
December 28 2018 2:30 AM
US President Donald Trump said he has no plans to withdraw American forces from Iraq, a week after announcing a surprise pullout of troops from Syria and ordering the Pentagon to bring home roughly half of the American forces deployed to Afghanistan.
The decision allows the United States to maintain a presence in the heart of the Middle East and a bulwark against Iranian influence, while also keeping a nearby staging ground should American troops be forced to re-enter Syria and engage a resurgent Islamic State.
A longer-term presence in Iraq provides Mr Trump with a hedge against his withdrawal from Syria, a decision that was widely opposed by his advisers and which led to the resignation of his defence secretary, Jim Mattis.
The development also suggests that Mr Trump’s proclamation of victory over the Islamic State in a video message from the White House lawn last week had been overstated. Mr Trump said during a visit to Iraq yesterday that a presence in the country would enable the US to re-enter Syria if need be, suggesting that concerns persist about the possibility of the Islamic State regrouping there.
“In fact, we could use this as the base if we wanted to do something in Syria,” Mr Trump said during the unannounced visit to al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq, between Baghdad and the Syrian border.
He was accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump. Mr Trump travelled with a small group of journalists, who were ordered for security reasons not to report that he was in Iraq until he had finished delivering his remarks.
The decision to remain in Iraq also highlighted a contradiction in Mr Trump’s message about the broader US military presence in the Middle East.
