Trump might leave 500 troops in Syria, send in tanks, to guard oil fields

President Trump is considering leaving about 500 U.S. troops in Syria and sending in dozens of battle tanks and other military equipment to help guard oil fields currently held by Kurdish forces, The Wall Street Journal reports. "The evolving plan underscores the ongoing security threats in Syria and, potentially, White House sensitivity to a congressional rebuke," The Washington Post adds. "It also highlights that the U.S. mission appears to be shifting from one focused on fighting the Islamic State to at least partly keeping the country's own government from possessing all its oil fields."

Trump tweeted Thursday that "we will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!" But Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said after a small White House briefing that "we will leave troops there to make sure that Iran does not, Russia doesn't get, Assad doesn't get those oil wells."

Trump started shifting from his Oct. 6 decision to withdraw all 1,000 U.S. troops to protecting the oil fields after an Oct. 8 meeting with retired Gen. Jack Keane, a Fox News analyst, and an Oct. 14 follow-up meeting with Keane and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), NBC News reports. They showed Trump a map and argued that Iran would get the oil if the U.S. left, rather than focusing on "Russia, which officials say is far more capable and likely to make moves to harness the oil." Trump soon started talking publicly about a need to "secure the oil."

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Trump also apparently views his oil field protection plan as a boon to the Kurds amid bipartisan complaints he abandoned the key U.S. ally. "We'll work something out with the Kurds so that they have some money, so that they have some cash flow," Trump said on Monday. "Maybe we'll get one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly." On Thursday he tweeted: "Perhaps it is time for the Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region!" Such an exodus, The Guardian notes, would entail "a population transfer from the Kurdish areas along the border with Turkey southwards to the almost entirely Sunni Arab area of Deir al-Zour."