Pentagon Confirms: Tanks & Additional US Forces To Deploy At Syrian Oil Fields
Less than 30 minutes after President Trump tweeted early Friday, “Our soldiers have left and are leaving Syria for other places, then…COMING HOME!” — Defense Secretary Mark Esper confirmed prior reports that the Pentagon will indeed leave behind a small military presence to include “mechanized forces” at “the oil fields”.
As we reported yesterday per a WSJ report, the plan is likely to include some 500 troops stationed at the major oil fields east of the Euphrates,and sending dozens of battle tanksand other equipment to protect them. So perhaps merely some troops are actually coming home, while the tanks are moving in.
To be expected, the justification Esper gave is focused on the perpetual “threat” of a reconstituted Islamic State. “We are now taking some actions… to strengthen our position at Deir al zor, to ensure that we can deny ISIS access to the oil fields,” Esper told reporters at a briefing. “We are reinforcing that position, it will include some mechanized forces,” Esper said. Like Osama bin Laden after 9/11, ISIS is the bogeyman that keeps on giving, conveniently used as an excuse for the Pentagon to never leave the region, apparently.
Trump is clearly bending to the demands of his generals, who not only want to leave the Syrian Kurds a major bargaining chip to play in dealing with Assad, but continued control over Syria’s domestic energy resources can be used by Washington as potential leverage in future negotiations over Syria.
It’s also perhaps to deflect the growing mainstream media and Democratic criticism (along with some key Republican allies) that Trump has supposedly “handed the Middle East to Russia”. It further fits with Trump’s Thursday tweet, declaring:
“We will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!”
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