Iran Says US Presence In Syria Was ‘A Mistake, Illogical, And A Source Of Tension’
On December 20, President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of all United States troops from Syria via Twitter. According to the Washington Post, the president is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan as well.
Some countries in the region are satisfied with Trump’s decision to halt U.S. presence in Syria. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said Saturday that American military presence in the country had been a mistake, Reuters reports.
“From the start, the entry and presence of American forces in the region has been a mistake, illogical and a source of tension, and a main cause of instability,” he told Iranian state television.
The news agency notes that Iran openly supports Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad and supplies his regime with military equipment. Officially, Tehran has long opposed the presence of foreign forces in the war-torn region.
Trump may have caused anger with his decision, but former President Barack Obama went through the same — he was criticized for intervening, however, at least by some media.
For instance, in 2016, Foreign Policy wrote that Syria will “stain Obama’s legacy forever,” pointing out that Obama’s Syria policy may have played an important part in causing the immigration crisis in Europe. In 2014, the Independent observed that Barack Obama — who had been hailed as a “peace” president — bombed seven countries in six years: Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
As the Daily Beast recently pointed out, Obama was criticized for launching 186 drone strikes and dubbed the “drone president.” President Donald Trump — who is now being criticized for pulling troops out of Syria and Afghanistan — has only ramped up the number of drone strikes. In his first two years in office, Trump launched 238 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
Iran says U.S. troops in Syria "illogical, source of tension" -report https://t.co/y8TokLsLFp
— Reuters Iran (@ReutersIran) December 22, 2018
Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan seem to have pitted him against both parties, and even some of his Republican allies have issued alarming warnings. Senator Lindsey Graham said that Trump is “paving the way toward a second 9/11,” according to the Washington Post.
Nevertheless, as previously reported by the Inquisitr, progressive media outlets have praised Donald Trump’s decision. “Nothing unites our political class like the threat of ending our never-ending war,” award-winning journalist Matt Taibbi wrote in an op-ed.
“We’ve successfully brainwashed big chunks of the population into thinking it’s normal for a country to exist in a state of permanent war, fighting in seven countries at once, spending half of all discretionary funding on defense,” Taibbi concluded.
But even some progressives have called the Syria withdrawal a mistake. World-renowned linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky opined that Trump must stay involved in Syria in order to protect the Kurds, according to MintPress News.
