Will the ISIS Attack Accelerate Trump’s Syria Pullout?

US. service members were killed during an explosion while conducting a routine patrol in Syria today. We are still gathering information and will share additional details at a later time,” tweeted the Spokesperson for Operation Inherent Resolve.

President Donald Trump’s January 2 description of Syria as a land of “sand and death” has proved unfortunately prophetic.

Four U.S. soldiers were killed in a restaurant bombing, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights putting the death total at 15. Responsibility for the attack has been claimed by the Islamic State.

Up until now, U.S. forces have only suffered two casualties since the United States started bombing Syria in the fall of 2014. Multiple experts have spoken to TNI in response to the attack.

Manbij, where the bombing took place, is a large Arab city in the north of Syria that Kurdish forces, with American assistance, captured from the Islamic State in 2016. “The danger to U.S. troops is much higher in Manbij, where Turkey and the U.S. faced off and Turkey demanded that the YPG, or Kurdish forces, not be present. This required the U.S. to go out on patrols, which puts them at great risk. If the U.S. decides to police a buffer zone between Turkey and the Kurdish parts of Syria, more Americans will be killed,” said Oklahoma University Professor Joshua Landis, who heads their Center for Middle East Studies.

The kind of policing mission Landis describes makes the deaths of U.S. troops “probably inevitable,” in his words, and creates increasing liabilities on the ground. “A lengthy U.S. military occupation poses innumerable risks: driving adversaries into each other’s arms, alienating our Turkish allies, inflaming Islamist-nationalist sentiments in Iraq and Syria, engaging in costly nation-building, and risking great power conflict with nuclear superpower Russia,” listed Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis, a Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities.

“The longer the Trump administration delays the previously announced withdrawal, the more troops we’re likely to needlessly sacrifice…It is time to expedite the president’s order and withdraw all our troops from Syria before any more troops are killed,” recommended Davis.

Others disagree, claiming that the attack proves that now is not the appropriate time for a U.S. withdrawal. “This horrific attack proves what the experts—including current or recently-resigned U.S. officials—have been saying: that ISIS remains a threat and that by declaring its defeat and ordering the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, Trump prematurely spiked the football,” said Executive Vice President Derek Chollet of the German Marshall Fund. Chollet previously served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Obama administration.

“The administration’s explanations for what we are doing in Syria have been all over the place, and it is unclear how their strategy is supposed to work,” continued Chollet. President Trump has claimed (on Twitter and elsewhere) that the only task of U.S. forces in Syria is the defeat of the Islamic State. This has been continuously contradicted, however, by figures such as National Security Advisor John Bolton and Special Envoy for Syria James Jeffrey, who say the U.S. mission includes goals such as the withdrawal of all Iranian forces from Syria and guaranteed protections for the Kurds.

Source: Will the ISIS Attack Accelerate Trump’s Syria Pullout? | The National Interest