The Trump administration’s plan for Syria appears to be based on an awful lot of wishful thinking:

The Trump administration is seeking to assemble an Arab force to replace the U.S. military contingent in Syria and help stabilize the northeastern part of the country after the defeat of Islamic State, U.S. officials said. John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s new national security adviser, recently called Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s acting intelligence chief, to see if Cairo would contribute to the effort, officials said. The initiative comes as the administration has asked Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to contribute billions of dollars to help restore northern Syria. It wants Arab nations to send troops as well, officials said.

The U.S. should remove its forces from Syria as quickly as possible, but it is fanciful to think that regional clients are going to put up the soldiers and funding to replace them. It is fitting that Bolton’s idea is little more than a revised version of something Rubio was proposing several years ago. Egypt’s military has enough of its own security problems at home, and it would be ill-suited to a foreign mission like this. For that matter, the current Egyptian government has expressed some support for the Syrian regime in the recent past, so it would be bizarre for them to occupy territory in order to deny Damascus control over it.

The Saudis and Emiratis remain bogged down in Yemen, and the Saudis in particular can’t afford another prolonged military mission abroad. I assume that this proposal would be a non-starter in both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Given how poorly the coalition has performed in Yemen, they would probably not be very effective in securing territory. It would be surprising if they were willing to offer more than a token amount of money to the effort. Qatar might very well provide some funding to win favor with Trump, but given the current rift between them and the other three states plus Bahrain I don’t see how they could work together effectively. The bigger problem is that all of these governments are responsible to one degree or another for contributing to Syria’s instability by arming and funding Islamist and jihadist groups. Putting them in charge of stabilization efforts in Syria is like putting the proverbial fox in charge of the chicken coop.

The Trump administration is going to great lengths to avoid the obvious solution, which is that the Syrian government should be the one to control Syrian territory. The refusal to accept this shows the degree to which Trump’s Syria policy is still as inflexible and ideological as any pursued by his predecessors. Trump should give up on trying to conjure up a new occupation force from unwilling governments and simply bring U.S. forces home as soon as possible. </s> President Donald Trump, left, shakes hands with national security adviser John Bolton in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, April 9, 2018, at the start of a meeting

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration are seeking to assemble an Arab force to replace the U.S. military in Syria. According to U.S. officials, the plan would use the Arab force to help stabilize the northeastern part of the country after the defeat of the Islamic State.

According to the report, John Bolton, Trump’s new national security adviser, called Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s acting intelligence chief, in attempt to persuade Egypt to join the force.

Emerging details of the plan come days after U.S.-led airstrikes hit several targets in Syria in response to a deadly chemical attack in the country. Trump had vowed in early April that the U.S. military mission in Syria was coming to a “rapid end” - a statement which appears to be at odds with Trump’s recent military escalation in the country.

In early April a press release from the White House said, “We expect our allies in the region and beyond to work toward peace and ensure that ISIS never re-emerges.” The press release came after Trump met with his national security team to discuss the fate of some $200 million in U.S. stabilization assistance for Syria that the White House put on hold after Trump said he wanted to leave Syria “very soon.” The State Department was to have spent the money on building up the country’s infrastructure, including power, water and roads.

Trump in recent weeks has asked Saudi Arabia to contribute $4 billion for reconstruction in Syria, according to a U.S. official, as part of the president’s effort to get other countries to pay for stabilizing the country so the U.S. isn’t on the hook.

"Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the U.A.E. have all been approached with respect to financial support and more broadly to contribute,” an administration official said.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the plan for an Arab force to take over for the U.S. in Syria is popular with Erik Prince, the founder of para-military company Blackwater and who has helped the U.A.E. and Somalia set up private security forces.

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Mr. Prince reportedly said Monday that he was contacted by Arab officials about the plan to build a force in Syria but that he was waiting to see what Mr. Trump would do.

This isn't the first mention of an "Arab force" replacing U.S. troops abroad that has been associated with the Trump White House. In March it was revealed, top GOP fundraiser Elliot Broidy once pitched Trump a plan to build a thousands-strong Muslim army — to be advised by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal — that would help the U.A.E. battle the Taliban and the Islamic State in Afghanistan.

The plan was revealed in a series of leaked emails that Broidy is now claiming in court were hacked by the government of Qatar.

The Associated Press contributed to this report </s> The US administration has asked Arab countries including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to contribute billions of dollars and a large number of troops to help reestablish stability in the war-torn country, and in particular in northern regions. Expressing his growing concern surrounding the cost and duration of the military intervention in Syria, President Trump said: “We have asked our partners to take greater responsibility for securing their home region, including contributing larger amounts of money.” A US administration official confirmed this statement, saying: “Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the U.A.E. have all been approached with respect to financial support and more broadly to contribute.” Trump’s new National Security Adviser, John Bolton, also reportedly contacted Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel to determine whether the North African nation would contribute to the effort.

Certain US officials have been quick to highlight the large obstacles that the US faces in establishing an Arab coalition force in Syria. Michael O’Hanlon, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, warned of external intervention, saying: “A new force has to be strong enough to face down Assad or Iran if either seeks to reclaim territory, perhaps with Russia’s help.” And Charles Lister, a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, cast doubt over the project, saying: “There is just no precedent or established basis for this shaping into a successful strategy.” He also noted that Arab countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia would be reluctant to enter into new military action, as they are currently involved militarily in Yemen.

This would be exacerbated by the uncertain role that the US would play in the project, with questions remaining surrounding whether the US would continue to provide training, support and air cover for troops. US military officials however signalled in January that they were hoping to end their military campaign in Syria in a matter of months, but maintain a certain number of troops in the region to ensure the ongoing stability of key Islamic State locations such as Raqqa. Mr Trump also said in early April that he desired a speedy withdrawal of the 2,000 US troops currently positioned in Syria. This has caused rising fears among other military officials and international politicians that a rapid US withdrawal would create a power vacuum for ISIS to regain ground, or for nations such as Iran and Russia to gain further control. </s> President Donald Trump at a cabinet meeting earlier in the day said he will not reverse course on his decision to pull US troops out of Syria. The comment came just hours after reports that senior officials confirmed the United States would leave some 400 troops in the country.

"I am confident we can maintain a campaign," Dunford said on Friday.

On Thursday, the White House said a small contingent of forces would be left behind in Syria that will include 200 in a peacekeeping role.

In December, US President Donald Trump announced that Washington would pull out its forces, which had been operating in Syria for years as part of the international coalition fighting against the Islamic State terror group (banned in Russia).

READ MORE: US Likely to Retain Control of Northeast Syria After Troop Pullout — Official

Notably, the US forces have been operating in Syria without the authorization of the Middle Eastern country’s government or the UN Security Council. Washington has been supporting the Kurdish-led militia controlling the territories to the east of the Euphrates and opposing the Syrian government. Ankara, in its turn, sees the militia linked to the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which the authorities have listed as a terrorist organization. </s> EVER SINCE President Trump abruptly announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria in December, his top aides, military commanders, congressional leaders and U.S. allies have scrambled to reverse or modify a decision that portended disastrous consequences. It appears they finally made headway. Administration officials said Friday that some 400 U.S. troops will remain in the country, compared with about 2,000 now, split between a northern area along the Turkish border and a southern base near Jordan.

It’s not clear whether that modest deployment will be enough to protect U.S. interests, which include preventing conflict between U.S.-allied forces in Syria and Turkey, ensuring that Islamic State militants in the region do not regroup, and avoiding a strategic windfall for Iran and Russia. But it is a positive step that, with luck, will temper a major strategic blunder by Mr. Trump.

The president announced the abandonment of Syria abruptly and without consulting advisers or allies. He never offered a cogent explanation, merely repeating empty slogans about bringing U.S. troops home from “endless wars” and refusing to become “the Policeman of the Middle East.” Until late this week, he appeared deaf to the senior military officials, Republican senators and European leaders who warned he was badly misreading the situation in Syria and the stakes for the United States.

In reality, the U.S. mission there, unlike those in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been a nearly unqualified success. Having learned the lessons of those earlier wars, American commanders established a light footprint in northeastern Syria and forged an alliance with Kurdish-led local forces. U.S. personnel armed and trained those fighters, and backed them with airpower as they liberated territory from the Islamic State. This campaign incurred seven U.S. combat deaths in four years and left the allies in control of a large and strategic swath of territory. For the first time, Washington had meaningful leverage in bargaining over Syria’s future.

Having dissuaded Mr. Trump, for now, against throwing those gains away, U.S. commanders and diplomats can now return to pursuing the goals they had previously set, which include ensuring that the thousands of remaining extremist fighters in Syria do not regroup and seeking an acceptable settlement of the Syrian civil war. That will necessarily involve curtailing Iran’s presence in the country, including its attempt to entrench fighters and advanced missiles threatening Israel.

The first step will be striking a deal with Turkey to create a buffer zone between it and the U.S.-allied Syrian Kurds — a delicate enterprise that will require Mr. Trump to stand up to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rather than capitulate to his demands. U.S. officials will also try to persuade Britain and France to continue their own deployments of counterterrorism forces in northern Syria; the Europeans had previously said they would not remain in the event of a U.S. withdrawal.

All of this is made more difficult by Mr. Trump’s steadily deteriorating relationships with key European allies and his inclination to accommodate autocrats such as Mr. Erdogan and Russia’s Vladi­mir Putin. For now, however, the president deserves credit for listening to those who warned him against the Middle Eastern pitfall he was blundering into. </s> In a momentous announcement at an event in Ohio on Thursday, Donald Trump said, “We’re knocking the hell out of ISIS. We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.”

What lends credence to the statement that the Trump administration will soon be pulling 2,000 US troops out of Syria – mostly Special Forces assisting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces – is that President Trump had recently announced to sack the National Security Advisor Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.

McMaster represented the institutional logic of the deep state in the Trump administration and was instrumental in advising Donald Trump to escalate the conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria. He had advised President Trump to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan from 8,400 to 15,000. And in Syria, he was in favor of the Pentagon’s policy of training and arming 30,000 Kurdish border guards to patrol Syria’s northern border with Turkey.

Both the decisions have spectacularly backfired on the Trump administration. The decision to train and arm 30,000 Kurdish border guards had annoyed the Erdogan administration to an extent that Turkey mounted Operation Olive Branch in the Kurdish-held enclave of Afrin in Syria’s northwest on January 20.

After capturing Afrin on March 18, the Turkish armed forces and their Free Syria Army proxies have now cast their eyes further east on Manbij where the US Special Forces are closely cooperating with the Kurdish YPG militia, in line with the long-held Turkish military doctrine of denying the Kurds any Syrian territory west of River Euphrates.

More significantly, however, the US bombers and Apache helicopters struck a contingent of Syrian government troops and allied forces in Deir al-Zor on February 7 that reportedly killed and wounded dozens of Russian military contractors working for the private security firm, the Wagner group.

In order to understand the reason why the US brazenly attacked the Russian contractors, we need to keep the backdrop of seven-year-long Syrian conflict in mind. Washington has failed to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. After the Russian intervention in September 2015, the momentum of the battle has shifted in favor of the Syrian government and Washington’s proxies are on the receiving end in the conflict.

Washington’s policy of nurturing militants against the Syrian government has given birth to the Islamic State and myriads of jihadist groups that have carried out audacious terror attacks in Europe during the last three years. Out of necessity, Washington had to make the Kurds the centerpiece of its policy in Syria. But on January 20, its NATO-ally Turkey mounted Operation Olive Branch against the Kurds in the northwestern Syrian canton of Afrin.

In order to save its reputation as a global power, Washington could have confronted Turkey and pressured it to desist from invading Afrin. But it chose the easier path and vented its frustration on the Syrian government forces in Deir al-Zor which led to the casualties of scores of Russian military contractors hired by the Syrian government.

Another reason why Washington struck Russian contractors working in Syria was that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which are mainly comprised of Kurdish YPG militias – had reportedly handed over the control of some areas east of Euphrates River to Deir al-Zor Military Council (DMC), which is the Arab-led component of SDF, and had relocated several battalions of Kurdish YPG militias to Afrin and along Syria’s northern border with Turkey in order to defend the Kurdish-held areas against the onslaught of Turkish armed forces and allied Free Syria Army (FSA) militias.

Syrian forces with the backing of Russian contractors took advantage of the opportunity and crossed the Euphrates River to capture an oil refinery located east of Euphrates River in the Kurdish-held area of Deir al-Zor. The US Air Force responded with full force, knowing well the ragtag Arab component of SDF – mainly comprised of local Arab tribesmen and mercenaries to make the Kurdish-led SDF appear more representative and inclusive – was simply not a match for the superior training and arms of Syrian troops and Russian military contractors, consequently causing a massacre in which scores of Russian citizens lost their lives.

It would be pertinent to note here that regarding the Syria policy, there is a schism between the White House and the American deep state led by the Pentagon. After Donald Trump’s inauguration as the US president, he has delegated operational-level decisions in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to the Pentagon.

The way the US officials are evading responsibility for the incident, it appears the decision to strike pro-government forces in Deir al-Zor that included Russian contractors was taken by the operational commander of the US forces in Syria and the White House was not informed until after the strike.

Notwithstanding, it bears mentioning that unlike dyed-in-the-wool globalists and “liberal interventionists,” like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who cannot look past beyond the tunnel vision of political establishments, it appears that the protectionist Donald Trump not only follows news from conservative mainstream outlets, like the Fox News, but he has also been familiar with alternative news perspectives, such as Breitbart’s, no matter how racist and xenophobic.

Thus, Donald Trump is fully aware that the conflict in Syria is a proxy war initiated by the Western political establishments and their regional Middle Eastern allies against the Syrian government. He is also mindful of the fact that militants have been funded, trained and armed in the training camps located in Turkey’s border regions to the north of Syria and in Jordan’s border regions to the south of Syria.

According to the last year’s March 31 article [1] for the New York Times by Michael Gordon, the US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and the recently sacked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had stated on the record that defeating the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq was the top priority of the Trump administration and the fate of Bashar al-Assad was of least concern to the new administration.

Under the previous Obama administration, the evident policy in Syria was regime change. The Trump administration, however, looks at the crisis in Syria from an entirely different perspective because Donald Trump regards Islamic jihadists as a much bigger threat to the security of the US.

In order to allay the concerns of Washington’s traditional allies in the Middle East, the Trump administration conducted a cruise missiles strike on al-Shayrat airfield in Homs governorate on April 6 last year after the chemical weapons strike in Khan Sheikhoun. But that isolated incident was nothing more than a show of force to bring home the point that the newly elected Donald Trump is an assertive and powerful president.

Finally, Karen De Young and Liz Sly made another startling revelation in the last year’s March 4 article [2] for the Washington Post: “Trump has said repeatedly that the US and Russia should cooperate against the Islamic State, and he has indicated that the future of Russia-backed Assad is of less concern to him.”

Thus, the interests of all the major players in Syria have evidently converged on defeating Islamic jihadists, and the Obama-era policy of regime change has been put on the back burner. And after the recent announcement of complete withdrawal of US troops from Syria by President Trump, it appears that we are approaching the endgame in Syria, an event as momentous as the Fall of Saigon in 1975, which will mark a stellar military victory for Vladimir Putin.

1- White House Accepts ‘Political Reality’ of Assad’s Grip on Power in Syria:

2- Pentagon plan to seize Raqqa calls for significant increase in U.S. participation:

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. </s> AL-ASAD AIRBASE, Iraq — In a surprise trip to Iraq, President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria where they have been helping battle Islamic State militants.

“We’re no longer the suckers, folks,” Trump told American servicemen and women at a base in western Iraq. “We’re respected again as a nation.”

Trump said it’s because of U.S. military gains that he can withdraw 2,000 forces from Syria. During his first visit to a troubled region, Trump also said he has no plans to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.

“I made it clear from the beginning that our mission in Syria was to strip ISIS of its military strongholds,” Trump told troops clad in fatigues at al-Asad Airbase west of Baghdad.

“Eight years ago, we went there for three months and we never left,” he said. “Now, we’re doing it right and we’re going to finish it off.”
• Turkey ‘determined’ to drive out Syrian Kurdish forces and coordinate U.S. forces withdrawal
• Twitter after midnight: Trump defends decision to withdraw from Syria as Republicans speak out
• ‘We have defeated ISIS’: Trump has ordered full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, official says

He said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to take out “any remnants” of ISIS left in Syria. The U.S. presence in Syria was not meant to be “open-ended,” he said, adding that other wealthy nations should pay for rebuilding Syria.

“The nations of the region must step up and take more responsibility for their future,” said Trump, who said there would be a “strong, deliberate and orderly withdrawal” of U.S. forces from Syria.

Trump’s trip to Iraq came a week after he stunned his national security advisers by announcing the U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria.

Defence Secretary Jim Mattis abruptly resigned following the announcement, and Trump’s decision rattled allies around the world, including in Iraq.

Trump’s trip was shrouded in secrecy. Air Force One flew overnight from Washington, landing at an airbase west of Baghdad under the cover of darkness Wednesday evening. It is his first visit with troops stationed in a troubled region.

Fifteen years after the 2003 invasion, the U.S. still has more than 5,000 troops in Iraq supporting the government as it continues the fight against remaining pockets of resistance by the Islamic State group. ISIS has lost a significant amount of territory in Iraq and Syria but is still seen as a threat.

Trump, who speaks often about his support for the U.S. military, had faced criticism for not yet visiting U.S. troops stationed in harm’s way as he comes up on his two-year mark in office. He told The Associated Press in an interview in October that he “will do that at some point, but I don’t think it’s overly necessary.” He later began to signal that such a troop visit was in the offing.

Trump had planned to spend Christmas at his private club in Florida, but stayed behind in Washington due to the shutdown. It’s unclear whether his trip to Iraq was added after it became apparent that the government would be shut down indefinitely due to a stalemate between Trump and congressional Democrats over the president’s demand for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Adding to the tumult, the stock market has been experiencing heavy losses over concerns about a slowing global economy, Trump’s trade war with China and the president’s public slamming of the Federal Reserve and its chairman over interest rate hikes by the independent agency.

Trump’s visit comes at a time when his Middle East policy is in flux. He went against the views of his top national security advisers in announcing the Syria withdrawal, a decision that risks creating a vacuum for extremists to thrive.

There are dire implications in particular for neighbouring Iraq. The Iraqi government now has control of all the country’s cities, towns and villages after fighting its last urban battles against ISIS in December 2017. But its political, military and economic situation remains uncertain, and the country continues to experience sporadic bombings, kidnappings and assassinations, which most people attribute to IS.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi recently said Iraqi troops could deploy into Syria to protect Iraq from threats across its borders. Iraq keeps reinforcements along its frontier to guard against infiltration by ISIS militants, who hold a pocket of territory along the Euphrates River.

Trump campaigned for office on a platform of ending U.S. involvement in foreign trouble spots, such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Syria decision will ultimately affect all of the approximately 2,000 troops deployed in the war-torn country. The Pentagon is also said to be developing plans to withdraw up to half of the 14,000 American troops still serving in Afghanistan.

During the presidential campaign, Trump blamed Democrat Hillary Clinton for the rise of ISIS, due to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011 during her tenure as secretary of state.

President George W. Bush is the one who set the 2011 withdrawal date as part of an agreement with the Iraqi government to gradually shrink the U.S. footprint and slowly hand off security responsibilities to the government and Iraqi security forces.

His successor, President Barack Obama, wanted to leave a residual force in Iraq to help the government manage ongoing security challenges. But he ultimately went ahead with the scheduled pullout in 2011 after Iraqi’s political leaders rejected terms the U.S. sought for legal protections for the U.S. troops that would have remained.

Two of Trump’s recent predecessors visited Iraq early in their terms.

Bush visited Iraq in November 2003, about eight months after that conflict began. Due to security concerns, Bush waited until 2006 to make his first visit to Afghanistan.

Obama visited Iraq in April 2009, the first year of his eight years in office, as part of an overseas tour. He visited Afghanistan in 2010.

Vice-President Mike Pence visited Afghanistan in December 2017, not long after Trump outlined a strategy to break the stalemate in America’s longest war. Pence met with Afghan leaders and visited with U.S. troops stationed in the country. Trump has not visited Afghanistan. </s> Commander in chief Donald Trump has America’s military brass reaching for the biggest jar of Excedrin the generals can find. After the president’s tweets and taunts of the past few days, who could blame them? Two fluid situations that still were unfolding Wednesday:
• On the border with Mexico, Trump would deploy the National Guard to intensify his crackdown on illegal immigration. That’s the job of the U.S. Border Patrol, which says illegal immigrant crossings are at their lowest since 1971. But Trump’s not fazed. “Until we can have a wall and proper security, we are going to be guarding our border with the military,” he declared this week. On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the administration will ask governors in border states to deploy National Guard units as backup for Border Patrol agents.
• In Syria, meanwhile, Trump wants to withdraw American troops. That would leave a volatile mix in and around that hothouse country: regular military and irregular combatants from Russia, Iran and Turkey; forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad; moderate rebels; and the remnants of Islamic State that also menace war-weary Syrians. But Trump’s had enough, and earlier this week announced he wants “to get out. I want to bring our troops back home.”

The problem with those two strategies is that they don’t reflect on-the-ground realities on the Mexican border or in Syria.

The U.S. has about 2,000 troops in Syria. Their job is to advise and help Syrian Kurd and Arab forces battle what’s left of the Islamic State forces, and to direct air strikes against the group. Though Islamic State has been defeated in most of the territory it held, including its de facto capital, Raqqa, remnants of the group remain near Syria’s border with Iraq.

Keeping an American troop presence in Syria also gums up plans of Russia and Iran to expand their influence in the Middle East. And it keeps Turkey from squashing U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters who helped free Raqqa.

We acknowledge that we’re dealing here with mixed signals from White House sources. The Washington Post reported that Trump has told his military leaders to ready the troop withdrawal, though he hasn’t set a timetable. The New York Times, however, reported that the White House has tried to walk back the president’s words. “The United States and our partners remain committed to eliminating the small ISIS presence in Syria that our forces have not already eradicated,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. That suggested U.S. troops would remain in Syria.

As for the Mexican border, Trump may be overselling the actual role the National Guard would play. Nobody, we trust, envisions a military confrontation. Yes, such troops could help Border Patrol agents with surveillance and some other tasks; Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both deployed National Guard troops in support roles. But Nielsen’s inability to discuss troop numbers in such a border deployment, let alone its price tag, suggests an initiative that’s being hastily thrown together. Or is all this White House talk primarily political grandstanding?

Border security is, and always will be, a top priority. So is bringing American troops home from Syria — when their mission is complete. We’ve criticized Obama for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq prematurely, one reason Islamic State got a foothold there.

Any military deployment should be crafted more carefully than tweets, and fully explained to citizens who contribute the manpower and the money. In these two cases, Trump has met neither burden.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook. </s> The US military will keep around 200 troops in Syria after US President Donald Trump’s pullout from the war-torn country, the White House said Thursday.

“A small peacekeeping group of about 200 will remain in Syria for a period of time,” White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders said.

The announcement comes amid fierce criticism of Trump’s decision to withdraw America’s 2,000 or so troops from Syria by April 30, with members of his own Republican Party blasting the move.

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In December, Trump declared victory over the Islamic State group in Syria, even though thousands of jihadists remain and fighting continues around their last holdout.

Critics have decried a number of possible outcomes from a precipitous withdrawal, including a Turkish attack on US-backed Kurdish forces and a resurgence of IS.

Israel has repeatedly warned in recent years that Iran is seeking to establish a military presence in Syria, where it is fighting alongside its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah and Russia to restore the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Israeli officials have also warned that America’s absence would open the door for Tehran to create a so-called “land bridge” from Iran, through Iraq and Syria, into Lebanon and to the Mediterranean Sea.

Over the last several years, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria against targets linked to Iran.

Sanders did not provide additional details, but the troops’ “peacekeeping” designation could pave the way for European allies to commit forces for such a mission.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan visited Europe last week where he attempted to convince allies to maintain a troop presence in Syria after the US pulls out.

But he struggled to persuade other countries why they should risk their forces with America gone.

Trump earlier Thursday spoke with Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and the two men discussed Syria, according to a White House summary.

“The two presidents agreed to continue coordinating on the creation of a potential safe zone” in Syria, the readout said.

At the height of its rule, IS imposed its brutal ideology on a territory roughly the size of the United Kingdom, attracting thousands of supporters from abroad.

But the jihadists have since lost almost all their territory save for a tiny sliver of around half a square kilometer (a fifth of a square mile) in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are working towards evacuating civilians remaining in the holdout, so they can polish off the dying IS “caliphate” whether through an assault or a surrender deal.

Syria’s Kurds have long demanded the repatriation of foreigners accused of belonging to IS in their custody, but their home countries have been reluctant.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration are considering replacing the U.S. military forces in Syria with a regional Arab force.