200 US troops left in Syria 200 too many

Getting our 1,000 troops out of harms way in northeast Syria was the most sensible US move in the region since before our senseless invasion of Afghanistan 18 years ago. That's because it represents the first real US pullback from perpetual war there. Those soldiers were on the flashpoint between Syrian Kurds seeking ast homeland of their own and Turkey, which will never let that happen if it involves a slice of Turkey. Conflict was inevitable there unless the US stayed on that firing line forever. Now the Kurds have embraced the involvement of the Syrian government and their Russian backers which will protect them from Turkish aggression while incorporating them into the sovereign Syrian government. Some power sharing and autonomy for the Kurds is likely. They are OK with this. Syrian Kurdish commander Mazloum Abdi publicly advised “We told Trump that we are contacting the Syrian regime and the Russians in order to protect our country and land. We are not against that."

The Kurds will be glad to see the US leave. We illegally and immorally intervened in the Syrian civil war in 2013, arming thousands of Sunni fighters who morphed into ISIS in Syria. They represented an existential threat to the Syrian Kurds who had to rely on US weapons to fight them off. Eleven thousand died doing just that, all resulting from US interference.

We cannot understate the significance of the US pullback as a first step to end perpetual war; but only if it can be maintained and expanded. As a sop to the war party, Trump moved the soldiers to Western Iraq. But just as they crossed the border the Iraqi government kicked them out, extending their withdrawal 6,000 miles to the homeland. In another sop to the war party, Trump announced that 200 soldiers will stay in Syria to protect oil fields. That is as ludicrous and incomprehensible as it sounds.

The US is finished as a major player in the Middle East though it still can't accept that reality. Eighteen years of senseless war, millions of dead, wounded and dispossessed from our meddling is enough.