Trump self-labeled Stable Genius: Uses DOD to Help Syria, Iran, Turkey & Putin

Trump's World View and Him as CINC

ABC News report below in part:

U.S. troops have arrived in eastern Syria as part of a new deployment to defend Syrian oil from falling into the hands of the ISIS according to DOD. This is a move that reflects the Trump’s back-and-forth Syrian policy.  

As many as 500 American troops could be part of the new force announced just three weeks after Trump ordered the withdrawal of the 1,000 U.S. troops in northeastern Syria, saying: “It's time to come back home.” 

This arrival of new forces, plus the decision to keep 200 troops at a base in southern Syria, means that the troop withdrawal will result in 700 American forces remaining in Syria.  Hundreds of U.S. personnel have been located near those oil fields since 2017 when they were retaken from ISIS by America’s Kurdish partners.

Shortly after the decision to withdraw the 1,000 U.S. forces in Syria, Trump decided to maintain a small footprint of forces in southern Syria at the “At Tanf Garrison … to continue to disrupt remnants of ISIS.” 

But U.S. officials have said the real reason to maintain the troop presence there is to deter Iranian arms shipments through the key highway that runs past the garrison, linking Iran to the Mediterranean.

Chairman of the JCS, Army Gen. Mark Milley, said that U.S. troops would protect the Conoco oil fields, located just east of Deir ez Zor along the Euphrates River. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that deployment would continue until the U.S. has “sufficient capability to ensure ISIS and other destabilizing actors are denied access to that oil facility.” 

But Trump has taken that mission a step further, saying the U.S. will be “keeping the oil” – an assertion that has prompted renewed cries that doing so is a war crime.

The Pentagon has only said the U.S. will guard the oil from falling into the wrong hands. Still, Esper said American forces retain the right to self-defense and will “respond with overwhelming military force against any group who threatens the safety of our forces there, to include Syrian troops or their Russian and Iranian backers.”

My 2 cents: Ho Lee Sheet … this is getting us deeper and deeper in that region and will make our forces fresh new prime targets for anyone from any side and at any time.

The “stable genius has royally screwed the pooch” as they say.

Military speaking: This a very poor decision – one that says we will protect Syrian oil for American blood.

Stay tuned.