Is Trump Preparing to Withdraw U.S. Troops From Syria?

U.S. troops at Al-Tanf (Trenton Pallone/U.S. Army)

There has been much uncertainty in and about Syria since the regime of Bashar al-Asad collapsed in December, and the country was taken over by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist group once loyal to Al-Qaeda. Given the devastation, physical and social, done by nearly fourteen years of civil war—and forty years of sect-manipulating totalitarian rule before that—the transition was going almost preternaturally well. Until earlier this month. The massacre of over-400 Alawi civilians on the coast over a few days after 6 March by ex-rebel troops and foreign jihadists under the authority of the HTS government, supported by thousands of vengeful Sunnis from the surrounding areas, gave the first glimpse of one of the nightmare scenarios.

What the Alawi massacres mean for politics in Syria—specifically whether they presage the unravelling of the transition—is unclear at the present time. Where the carnage perhaps shed more light was on American politics over Syria.

AMERICAN MESSAGING ON THE ALAWI MASSACRES

There was an enormous amount of misinformation during the pogroms suggesting that an anti-Christian “genocide” was underway. The reality is that four Christians were killed in the violence, one of them by a stray bullet. Reports from survivors suggest that identifying as Christian saved people from the wrath of the Islamist death squads. Christians were neither the intended nor actual victims, as Christian leaders within Syria and Christian activists without made clear in real time. The target was the Alawis.

Still, factual accuracy is not one of President Donald Trump’s defining characteristics, and he had incentives to play into the propaganda. Trump’s support base includes a large number of Evangelicals, who were very worked up about Christians apparently being exterminated, all the more so because jihadists were the perpetrators. Trump loves to pose as a protector of Christians, and American Christians—not just Evangelicals—love him for it, no matter how unconvincing Trump’s adherence to the faith is. A bellicose “pro-Christian” statement against HTS would have been politically advantageous and cost-free for Trump: his supporters hardly insist he actually does anything; it’s all vibes. Yet there was no such statement. Indeed, Trump has said nothing about Syria over the last month.