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

Oil fields in Syria
(Image credit: Youssef Karwashan/AFP/Getty Images)

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."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

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."

Explore More
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.