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Antagonizing what’s left of Neocons on Capitol Hill, 72-year-old President Donald Trump met another campaign promise ordering U.S. troops out of Syria. Trump promised he would not expand more U.S. adventures in the Middle East, especially the 7-year-old U.S. involvement in Syria to oust President Bashar al-Assad. Former President Barack Obama spent six years backing a determined Saudi proxy war to oust al-Assad from power. Started March 15, 2011 at the height of the Arab Spring tossing dictators out of office, the Saudi-Turkey-U.S.-backed proxy war spent millions supplying Syrian rebel groups to topple al-Assad’s Shiite government. When Russian President Vladimir Putin joined the fight to save al-Assad Sept. 30, 2015, the Saudi proxy war started to fizzle when confronted with Russia’s superior air power. Three years later, al-Assad has regained control of Syria.

Battling the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] since 2014, Trump’s critics compare his decision to withdraw from Syria as comparable to Obama’s decision to withdraw from Iraq Dec. 15, 2011. Obama’s decision to end the Iraq War was largely credited with the rise of ISIS, eventually seizing 30% of Iraq and Syria in 2014. Unlike Iraq where Obama withdrew about 14,000 U.S. troops Dec. 15, 2011, there’s only 2,000 U.S. advisers in Syria, largely helping with intel and training for the Kurdish YPG militia and Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF], the main anti-al-Assad rebel group. U.S. forces in Syria have had no direct combat role, other than directing Kurdish YPG forces to battle what’s left of ISIS. Once ISIS was driven from strongholds in Mosul, Iraq [July 20, 2017] and Raqqa Syira [Oct. 17, 2017], the so-called Caliphate scrambled into the Syrian and Iraqi deserts.

Trump’s decision to end U.S. involvement in Syria had more to do with mission accomplished, driving ISIS out of its major strongholds in Iraq and Syria. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), incoming Chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, loudly objected to Trump’s decision, citing past history in Iraq. But Graham’s dog in the fight has more to do with his friends in the Free Syria Army, now Syrian Democratic Forces, continuing to battle to topple al-Assad. Two-thousand U.S. advisers in or out of Syria will have no effect on whether ISIS has any possibility of reconstituting. Resigning today over Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria, Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis said Trump deserves a defense secretary that agrees with his views. Mattis backed the Saudi proxy war to topple al-Assad, spending U.S. blood-and-treasure to change regimes in Damascus.

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a new military operation in Syria to clear out terrorist and rebel groups threatening to infiltrate the Turkish border, Trump decided he would no longer back the YPG’s agenda of establishing a permanent Kurdish region in Syria. Turkey considers the Kurdish YPG and Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK] as terror groups hell-bent on establishing an independent Kurdistan in Turkish territory. “There rare many steps that Turkey and Iran can take together to stop the fighting in the region and to establish peace,” said Erdogan, referring to his commitment to peace in the region. Only yesterday, Russian President Vladmir Putin, Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for a new Syrian constitution and free elections, something demanded for years by Saudi Arabia’s High Negotiation Commission.

When you talk about differences with Mattis, Trump thinks the U.S. mission in Syria was limited to battling ISIS. Mattis was committed like Graham with toppling al-Assad, something Trump thinks squanders U.S. military resources. When you really get down to it, Trump wants to use the military only to fight-and-win wars when it comes to U.S. national security. Mattis and Graham think its OK to supply-arms-cash-and-advisers to topple a sovereign government like the one in Damascus. All the fake talk about former National Security Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn “selling out his country,” he was simply trying to help put U.S.-Russian relations back on a sound footing. When Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats Dec. 29, 2016, U.S.-Russian relations had hit rock bottom. Something had to be done to turn things around. Flynn’s talks with Kislyak, whether he lied or not, were about improving relations.

Deciding to let Turkey do some of the heavy lifting in Syria to clear out rebel groups and terrorists like al-Qaeda and ISIS, Trump concluded that the U.S. mission at this point in Syria was completed. Talk of ISIS reconstituting with the loss of 2,000 U.S. military advisers is preposterous. ISIS lost its territory in Iraq and Syria not because only the U.S. committed to eradicating them. Turkey, Russia and Iran, all have tried to rid the region of rebel groups and terrorists committed to toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. However undesirable al-Assad, he’s preferable to the chaos, death, destruction and anarchy from all the rebel groups trying to topple his Damascus government. Putin warned in 2015 before committing the Russian military to saving al-Assad, that allowing rebel and terrorist groups to topple Damacus would create the same disaster of what happened in Iraq.