F-15E Strike Eagles return from the first strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria, 2014.

PENTAGON: White House and Pentagon officials were unable to offer any details of president Trump’s surprise announcement Wednesday that he’s pulling US forces out of Syria. The abrupt reversal of US policy left huge questions hanging over how and when American troops will leave, let alone what the administration’s prospective policy toward Syria might be.

Republican Senators erupted in outrage, and there are some indications that Turkey, a major customer for US arms, pushed Trump to withdraw support from its traditional foes, the Kurds.

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry applauded the move as “a real prospect for a political solution” that could restore “hope” that more of Syria could return to the kind of peace imposed on Aleppo, now back under Assad regime control: “(While) Americans were there, there was no such hope.”

The British government, America’s closest ally, issued a guarded statement: “Much remains to be done and we must not lose sight of the threat they (ISIS) pose…. (but) as the United States has made clear, these developments in Syria do not signal the end of the Global Coalition or its campaign.”

The surprise announcement Wednesday that the US will pull its 2,000 troops out of Syria and immediately evacuate State Department personnel from the country came even as the US-led air campaign against ISIS continues unabated,

Pressed multiple times for details over the plan moving forward, a senior administration official admitted late Wednesday, “it’s not that I’m not telling you, it’s that I don’t know, quite frankly.” The official referred questions to the Pentagon. But Pentagon officials said only that they’re working on the details. At a previously scheduled meeting with reporters this morning, Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan and Vice President Mike Pence both refused to comment.

The confusion came just days after multiple administration officials, including National Security Advisor John Bolton, insisted that the US troops would stay in Syria until Iran ended its military presence in the country. The administration’s special envoy for Syria, Brett McGurk, recently called the idea of a US withdrawal “reckless.”

As happens so often however, administration policy was overturned by presidential Tweet, with the latest coming at 9:29 am: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”

As of Wednesday the air campaign against ISIS in Syria remained in full swing, according to one defense official, even as military planners rush to figure out how to redeploy troops and evacuate State Department officials in the country within the next 24 hours.

While president Trump declared ISIS defeated on Wednesday, every other administration official, both in and out of uniform, has been saying that while weakened, the fight continues to grind on. The 2,000 US personnel play an important supporting role for Washington’s most reliable ally in the chaotic Syrian civil war, the 30,000-strong Syrian Democratic Forces, which has recruited Arab soldiers but is widely seen as dominated by Kurds.

US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces training.

For the better part of two years, SDF fighters have been backed up by thousands of US and allied airstrikes, part of around-the-clock close air support. A look at the scope of that support in Syria gives some clue as to the extent of the fighting still going on between US-backed SDF and the Islamic State:

Just this past Saturday, US aircraft conducted 47 strikes on ISIS targets near the Syrian city of Hajin in a pocket of the Euphrates River Valley where ISIS is still active, hitting tactical units, mortar positions, tunnels, and oil facilities according to information from US Central Command. For the week of Dec. 9 – 15, US planes conducted 208 strikes in Syria primarily in the Euphrates river valley, which meanders from the Iraqi border in the East northwest to Raqqa. The number of strikes, spread among manned aircraft, drones, and artillery strikes from US bases inside Syria, testifies to the continued fighting as ISIS remains stubbornly entrenched along the river valley.

Prominent Republican legislators were quick to criticize the decision.

Sen. Marco Rubio declared that “when the U.S. pulls out of Syria, we are basically turning the country over to the Russians and to Iran, and primarily to Iran.” On-again, off-again Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham warned the pullout will “be seen by Iran and other bad actors as a sign of American weakness in the efforts to contain Iranian expansion.”

Sen. Ben. Sasse fumed that “the President’s generals have no idea where this weak decision came from: They believe the high-fiving winners today are Iran, ISIS, and Hezbollah. The losers are Israel, humanitarian victims, and U.S. intelligence gathering. A lot of American allies will be slaughtered if this retreat is implemented.”

The administration official said that even without the troops on the ground, “our counterterrorism mission remains what it was,” seemingly leaving the door open to continued airstrikes in support of the SDF in Syria.

But without American troops on the ground calling in those missions, coordination will be slower and airstrikes less precise. The SDF could be left without the layers of air power they’ve come to rely on in their operations in Raqqa and down the Euphrates. American troops have supplied local fighters with tablets with which they pinpoint potential targets and share with their American advisors, but that raw intel is filtered through US air controllers who relay the information to pilots in the air. Without US troops on the ground that line of communication will be severed, making it unclear if American and allied aircraft would still drop ordnance.

On Wednesday, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White lauded the “liberation” of ISIS-held territory, adding “the campaign against ISIS is not over.” But White confirmed that the military has “started the process of returning U.S. troops home from Syria as we transition to the next phase of the campaign.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Turkish Delight?

The surprise withdrawal also comes at a fraught time in US-Turkish relations, with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatening to attack the SDF — which Turkey considers allied with Kurdish militants inside Turkey — despite the presence of US forces in the area. Trump spoke with Erdogan by phone on Friday, leading to some speculation that the Turkish leader, who’s been edging away from the US and closer to the Kremlin, pushed Trump to withdraw. But the administration official insisted Wednesday that “the president made his own decision. It was not something he discussed with President Erdogan. He has informed President Erdogan of his decision.”

Eyebrows were already raised Tuesday evening, however, when the State Department announced the US is prepared to sell over 100 Patriot air defense missiles and radar systems to Turkey for $3.5 billion.

Patriot missile launcher

If approved by Congress, the sale would provide Ankara with a NATO-interoperable system for defending Turkish airspace, while perhaps scuttling the planned Turkish purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system, which NATO and Washington have warned against.

Turkey’s potential purchase of the Russian system led to a revolt in Congress this past summer, when lawmakers almost succeeded in blocking the sale of F-35 fighters to Turkey. So far there has been no indication that members of Congress would voice any such objections over the Patriot sale, as it could potentially be a way out for Turkey and NATO.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who was a key player in Congressional opposition to the F-35 transfers, told me in a statement he would support Turkey’s purchase of the Patriot missile system, “but only if Turkey cancels its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system.” Members of NATO have said that the presence of the S-400 in Turkey would endanger all alliance aircraft, as the sophisticated Russian-made radar — and, in all likelihood, Russian trainers and service representatives on the ground in Turkey — would feed sensitive operational information back to Moscow.

Sen. Van Hollen added that, as a member of NATO, “Turkey must not undermine the security of the United States and our allies. Operating the S-400 alongside the F-35 and Patriot batteries would do exactly that. The Administration must continue to negotiate exhaustively to keep this from happening. And if necessary, the Senate must prohibit these sales and apply the CAATSA sanctions against the Turkish government.”

Turkey has twice passed over the Patriot: In 2013 when it chose a Chinese system it eventually decided not to buy, and in 2017 when it finalized the S-400 deal. American officials never stopped pushing to close the Patriot deal, however, with State and Defense Department officials telling reporters in July that they continued to try and hammer out the details.

Turkish officials have not indicated they would pull out of the S-400 deal if they close on the Patriot, but President Trump has put the sale of American military equipment around the world as a top priority, making the sale a win for his agenda either way.

One of the issues with sealing an agreement was Turkey’s insistence that it receive a transfer of missile technology along with the missiles themselves, a request Washington denied. Tuesday’s announcement confirmed that there will be some technology offsets, but “at this time offset agreements are undetermined and will be defined in negotiations between the purchaser and contractors.”