The U.S. Isn’t Really Leaving Syria and Afghanistan
Even if American troops come home in a timely fashion, they will likely return before long.
by Dominic Tierney
Jan 08, 2019
4 minutes
President Donald Trump caused a political furor when he announced in December that he would quickly withdraw all 2,000 American troops in Syria, together with half of the 14,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Democrats (and many Republicans) condemned the exit strategy as a boon for America’s enemies. Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned in protest, as did the special envoy for the counter- campaign, Brett McGurk, and the Pentagon chief of staff, Kevin Sweeney. Other prominent voices praised the drawdown. In , for example, Robert Kaplan in Afghanistan “a vestigial limb of empire, and it is time to let it go.” These critics and defenders of Trump’s decision
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