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Trump’s decision to withdraw from northern Syria may fail: Analyst

James Jatras

US President Donald Trump’s decisions to withdraw American forces from northeastern Syria will be met with “very strong opposition” from hawkish American officials and may not take place, says a former US Senate policy adviser and diplomat.

Trump had previously promised to withdraw US troops from Syria and Afghanistan, but reneged after it drew panic from both American officials and some Arab allies, said James Jatras, a specialist in international relations.

“It’s unclear what the nature of this decision is and how far-reaching it is because we know that on several occasions, President Trump has tried to get the United States out of Syria and also Afghanistan,” Jatras told Press TV on Saturday.

“I suspect this decision may not hold; that there will be a very strong opposition from within the government, and as in the past, it may also fail to materialize,” he added.

In a statement on Sunday, the White House announced Turkey's planned invasion of northern Syria that seemed to indicate at least tacit American support.

The decision came after a phone conversation between Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the White House statement said.

The White House said US troops would withdraw from the border between Turkey and Syria and wouldn’t be involved in the offensive.

Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham has blasted the Trump administration for its decision to allow Turkey to invade northern Syria and potentially wipe out US-backed Kurdish fighters.

In a Twitter message on Monday, the Republican senator from North Carolina criticized the maneuver as "a disaster in the making" in a rare public break with the Republican president.

Graham, a vocal defender of Trump and frequent adviser on matters of foreign policy, claimed the White House move would ensure a “comeback” of the Daesh terror group, force the Kurds “to align with” Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iran, damage the relationship between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government and Congress, and become “a stain on America’s honor for abandoning the Kurds.”

Hawkish US officials like Graham “believe the United States must be in the middle of every global dispute and American forces must be engaged there,” Jatras said.

“Evidently, this is the kind of thing that people like Lindsey Graham find intolerable,” he added.


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