The US is "committed" to staying in Syria — to protect oil

For weeks, President Donald Trump and his top aides have said the US would deliberately withdraw nearly all of its 1,000 troops from Syria to end an “endless war.” But in a stunning reversal, the administration is now “committed” to fighting a war for oil in the country.

Three US officials confirmed to me that the US mission in Syria has indeed changed. Originally, the plan was to keep US troops in northern Syria to fight an anti-ISIS mission along with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led fighting group that battled the terrorists on the ground with American support. Then on October 6, the White House announced that US troops would leave the area, leaving the Kurds to fend off Turkish forces that have long wanted to kill them on its border.

And then it changed again: The White House is now weighing a plan to keep about 500 troops in Syria to keep oil fields out of ISIS’s hands, denying it a source of revenue that could help it reconstitute. It’s even possible that the US military will send tanks into the region for added firepower.

In other words, Trump is no longer serious about getting out of Syria entirely. It’s now a military mission with no end in sight.