US Withdrawing All Forces From Syria, Over A Year After Regime Change By Proxy War

Last week we and others reported that American forces finally after many years withdrew from the remote Al-Tanf Garrison, a base in southern Syria near the borders of Iraq and Jordan. US troops had long operated out of Tanf to pressure the Assad government as part of the long-running US-backed regime change project. The US primarily trained the Syrian Free Army (FSA) in that remote desert area – which was an umbrella group of various factions, among them jihadists, armed and funded by Washington.

But the majority of US forces had long occupied the northeast of the country, where the oil and gas fields are concentrated, specifically Hasakah and Deir Ezzor provinces. But over several weeks, the Pentagon has been handing over its constellation of small bases to the Syrian government of Ahmed al-Sharaa (al-Qaeda and ISIS name: Abu Mohammad al-Jolani). At times throughout the Syrian proxy war, the US had anywhere from 800 to 2000 troops on the ground, but likely also more contractors and intelligence operatives.

Under Trump, Washington has been weighing a complete withdrawal since the year’s start, having fully backed the Jolani regime in the wake of the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. This has been awkward to put it mildly, given Jolani had long been on the US terror list, after being dropped once he took control of Damascus.

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reports, “The U.S. is in the process of withdrawing all of its roughly 1,000 troops from Syria, according to three American officials, ending a decadelong military operation in the country.”

One question is whether this is connected to the Pentagon’s Iran-related build-up a little further to the east. WSJ notes on this, “The officials said the withdrawal was unrelated to the current U.S. deployment of naval and air forces in the Middle East for potential strikes against Iran if talks about that country’s nuclear program fail.”

Another issue is the Kurds. The US for a decade trained and armed the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), but now is cutting them lose. Kurdish leaders have warned of attacks by hardline Sunni militants under the new Damascus government.

“The Trump administration has decided that a U.S. military presence in Syria is no longer necessary, two U.S. officials said, because of the near-total disbandment of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the main U.S. partner in countering Islamic State in Syria for the past decade,” WSJ continues.

And yet US officials previously admitted to the same publication that post-Assad Syrian Army is “riddled with jihadist sympathizers, including soldiers with ties to al-Qaeda and ISIS and others who have been involved in alleged war crimes against the Kurds and Druze.”

This has been extremely controversial as the US-backed Kurds and SDF forces have been attacked while Damascus forces move in. Abandonment of the stateless Kurds has been a clear pattern of Washington policy over time.