The Pompeo-Bolton wing of the administration wanted to stay in Syria forever. This would have been exactly the opposite of why Trump got elected

https://russia-insider.com/en/node/25741

RI Staff

This time it’s real. It isn’t entirely impossible Trump will reverse himself later on yet again, or qualify the withdrawal in some other way, but for now it is clear that he has indeed given the order to Pentagon to get all its forces out of Syria. This has always been his instinct and inclination, but until now the Empire-first hawks he has surrounded himself with always in the end convinced him to keep the soldiers there after all:

“We know Trump’s instincts from the get-go were to get these guys out of Syria,” Tamara Wittes, a former State Department Middle East official now with the Brookings Institution, told Al-Monitor. “And yet, he has clearly been persuaded at several points ‘not yet, ISIS is not quite defeated, but we can use [the troop presence] as leverage against Iran.’ He becomes persuaded, and then at a certain point, … he decides enough is enough. He just changes his mind.”

So why is this time different? Here is the answer: Read the rest of this entry »