Washington Post: Trump repeats Obama's mistakes, consequences to be worse this time

NEWS DESK

The Washington Post said, "Last Wednesday, the President Donald Trump laid the base for a sudden withdrawal of 2,000 US troops from Syria, and effectively abandoning the anti-IS allies on the ground."

Yasmin al-Jemal, a non-comrade of the Atlantic Council and a visiting fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations from 2008 to 2015 and worked as a consultant on Middle East issues at the Pentagon, spoke about the US president's decision to withdraw from Syria.

The writer says, "Trump, who is proud of himself to do what Barack Obama did not, repeated his predecessor's mistakes in the region. The consequences will be worse this time."

According to the writer, in 2009, Obama came to power with deep concern of continued military intervention in the Middle East. In 2011, after failing to secure the legal immunities of about 5,000 US troops in an update to the US and Iraqi forces status agreement of 2008, Obama ended the US military presence in Iraq.

James Jeffrey, the US ambassador to Iraq at that time and now, the US special envoy to Syria discussed that any of those consequences could occur at the time.

The writer noted, "Only three years after the US withdrawal, the current IS dominated a third of Iraq, becoming the largest and most dangerous terrorist movement in the modern era".

But Trump's advisers and partners in the field agree that IS mercenaries are too far from defeat.

The writer says that IS still has thousands of supporters in Iraq and Syria, and according to the Pentagon, IS mercenaries are still well equipped to restart in the next few months if they would have the opportunity.

Meanwhile, conditions in Iraq also illustrate the weaknesses that still exist in the region.

The writer notes that the resignation of US Defense Secretary James Matisse came because of the decision to withdraw from Syria, and he is the latter in a long list of disputes with Trump.

Earlier, the US General Joseph Dunford said: "It is clear that there are combating forces led by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that are composed of all components of the Syrian people and the only that were able to defeat the largest terrorist organization in the Middle East."

The writer Yasmin said that Russia supports the Syrian regime, whether to protect the regime or to protect its naval base in Tartus, and added, "The reluctance of Obama administration to engage in the Middle East has led to considerable Russian's influence in the conflict and a bold foreign Russian policy to the United States in general."

Trump's continuation of the same policy in the region which he has recently referred to by the impending withdrawal from Syria would weaken the US role in the negotiations over Syria's post-conflict stage.

A.H

ANHA