Trump To Leave 1,000 Troops In Syria? What’s The Strategy?
The president has backpedaled yet again. Instead of seeing American troops return home from Syria "very soon," as President Trump promised, his neocon advisors have made sure that it's not going to happen.
The president has backpedaled yet again. Instead of seeing American troops return home from Syria "very soon," as President Trump promised, his neocon advisors have made sure that it's not going to happen.
The president has backpedaled yet again. Instead of seeing American troops return home from Syria "very soon," as President Trump promised, his neocon advisors have made sure that it's not going to happen.
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the audio version of the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host, Daniel.
Good morning.
How are you?
Happy Monday morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you?
I'm doing very well, and we just have to sort out a few minor little problems around the world.
We've been working on Syria for a long time, trying to sort that out.
We were excited, you know, in December.
Trump said he surprised us.
Oh, we were delighted.
Everybody's coming home.
We've won the war.
Of course, we questioned who really won what, but nevertheless, that was good news.
But I guess that was too much to be hopeful.
So we're still sorting that out.
What's going on?
Because over the weekend, last several days, we've had a lot of reports, you know, that the administration has changed its tune.
First, they said everybody's coming home.
Then they said, well, we have to, you know, keep a few there because we have to watch those Turks.
They might, you know, annihilate our friends, the Kurds.
And then they also thought, well, we need a few over there at El Toms, and that'll be, well, maybe we'll keep 200 here and 200 there, but we don't count special forces or FBI or CIA aid.
And so that's not relevant for the public discourse.
So then they got moved up to, you know, maybe 200, then 400.
And the weekend report was, well, we've redone this.
We're thinking more seriously about what we have to do.
And the information now, indirectly, coming from the administration, is they need 1,000 troops in Syria.
Of course, you know, if they really want to be the protectorate and take care of Syria, 1,000 troops won't even do it.
But anyway, the zero troops meant that we were going to reject our world obligations to run the world.
So that wasn't going to work.
But anyway, it's in flux right now.
I think, Daniel, one of the most interesting things here is we've had a pretty consistent report that they've blown it, you know, on the original intent.
But all of a sudden, there is this change, except for Dunsford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Yesterday, he sort of contradicted this and said, no, we're going to do it exactly as we said.
So the big question is, what's going on?
Who's in charge?
What's the strategy of this whole effort?
So I imagine you have a thought or two on that.
Yeah, that's the key phrase, Dr. Paul.
What is the strategy?
Because the initial strategy made sense, and it's not just because we support it, which is to bring the troops home.
You know, they weren't there legally in the first place.
You can't just put your troops.
They're not technically at war with that country.
So there was a strategy when Trump said in December we're pulling out because they had no business being there.
But then John Bolton immediately started, quote unquote, clarifying things for him.
And all the neocons that he's unfortunately hired started clarifying the policy.
And that's how it got to the 200 and then 400.
And then the Wall Street Journal on Sunday kind of had a firestorm when they broke the story that, no, no, it's going to be then.
And as you say, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dumford, immediately said, no, no, no, that's not true.
It's not going to be that.
He said, we continue to implement the president's direction to draw down U.S. forces to a residual presence.
But that doesn't answer the question, Dr. Paul.
What is the strategy?
Right.
You know, I kept thinking of the different explanations for this.
You know, it could come from people who lied to us directly, and governments have lied to us.
But for some reason, I don't want to write this mess off just immediately by flat out lying to us.
It doesn't even seem to be good lying, you know.
But we do get lied to, and we never know exactly what to believe.
We could have a policy like this because the people in charge of the policy, you know, are very, very confused, and they don't know what they want or different factions that are fighting over who's going to be in charge.
So then that goes on.
But the big thing is, is where does the deep state fit into this?
How do the neocons manage to get their way?
And it seems like that is the case.
And therefore, we'd have to say the administration has there is essentially no resistance in the administration to the ultimate goals of the neoconservatives.
Exactly.
And, you know, what happened when the president announced that he was taking all troops out is his neocons went crazy and said, don't you understand?
This is going to be a big win for Iran.
And of course, all they had to do was say the word Iran, and the president jumped up and shrieked.
But, you know, both the Saudis and the Israelis want the U.S. to be their tough guy to take on Iran.
They don't want to do it themselves.
And so as soon as that became bitter, that's when they started walking back.
And, you know, President Trump's point man for the Syria issue is James Jeffrey, you know, who comes from a neocon think tank in Washington that's very, very pro-right-wing Israeli.
And he's the one that started saying, no, no, the troops are going to stay there until the Iranians leave.
But, you know, that doesn't make sense because, as we've said on the show before, Dr. Paul, the Iranians are allies of the Syrian government, which is winning the war, has won the war, and they were asked to come in.
Just like if we had a problem, say, Mexico invaded and we asked NATO to come in and help us.
That's exactly the scenario.
You can't make a parallel between that and between the U.S. occupying territory when they're not invited in.
So it's so illogical and so irrational.
But again, it really is all about the Saudis and Israelis.
Well, it's such a contradiction to the public display of the antagonism toward the swamp.
We're going to clean out the swamp and take care of this.
And yet, many of those who were in there are still around, and then people add on and they come in.
So it's still a swamp.
So right now, the president's, you know, trying to portray himself as being so anti-swamp establishment, but he gets his support from the people who can't stand the neocons in the swamp.
So I don't know how this can last.
I don't think eventually somebody's going to catch on and say, hey, this doesn't add up.
So I think this is going to continue a mess.
I don't think they're ever going to let the president alone, even when he's right and well-intentioned, which we think he is on occasion.
It doesn't seem like that is going to win out.
The other big question that we might ask ourselves is if he makes these statements and he believes it, and then he gets his advice and then he changes his mind, what would be so difficult for an individual in his position to say, well, you know, I have these people here.
I've hired them.
They're my guns.
Why don't I sort this all out before?
And then at least it wouldn't be confusing because we work on this to try to keep it straight.
But think of the other people that, you know, face everything they do, the people around the world, the Kurds and everybody else, and the Turks.
I mean, do they know a lot more than we know and they know what to expect?
And do they have any, they get away without any surprises at all?
So I think, you know, when problems exist and you're dealing with difficult situations, the most important thing is to find out where people stand.
It's sort of something that the Cold War always provided for.
We knew where the Soviets stood, and we knew where we stood.
You know, I'm not even arguing right or wrong.
We knew where we stood.
But today, the factions, I don't think we know where each other stands.
That's exactly true.
And, you know, our argument has always been that interventionism doesn't solve problems.
It actually creates problems.
And this interventionism in Syria, I mean, this is what Trump is facing because the problem was created by Obama, of course, we have to admit, for going in there in the first place.
But now we're in a pickle because they've got Turkey there.
Turkey's serious that our allies are the Kurds, which they can't stand.
They want to get rid of.
We can't abandon either of them.
And so they've come up with a plan.
Some brainiac in the administration said, I know, let's get the Europeans to take our place there.
So Trump can promise, but we can keep the Kurds at bay.
And the Europeans said, Are you crazy?
We're not going to go in there.
And so far, they haven't had a single taker.
You know, it's even when our Senate and others get moving in the right direction, and they have on Yemen.
You know, they've had some resolutions that, you know, and they've argued the case.
This is an undeclared war.
We don't have any business there.
We're dealing with some madman.
And they said, we need to get out of there.
We're not going to let you continue to do this.
Whether it happens or not, it's another question.
But they never think, how often have we heard in these last four years that we've been talking about Syria?
What are we doing there?
Where did the authority come from?
So I think that that is someday we'll have to get people to ask those questions a little sooner.
Dealing With Madmen00:00:40
Exactly.
Let's hope that this is the Congress waking up a little bit.
And let's hope they wake up before we go into Venezuela, Dr. Paul.
Okay.
And I think we'll go ahead and finish up.
And just advise our viewers and listeners that we will be back and we'll be on the air.
And tomorrow will probably be audio.
But finish off with a reminder for our viewers.
Well, I just want to thank all our viewers and just remind them to go to ronpaulinstitute.org/slash conference, get your tickets for our drug war conference in Houston on May 18th.
Looking forward to meeting some of our listeners there.