Trump told advisers he wants US to withdraw from Syria soon: report

President Trump has told advisers that he wants to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria once remaining pockets of ISIS militants are defeated.

Reuters reported Friday that the president has spoken in internal deliberations with advisers about an early exit from Syria, though no such plan is complete and he has not given specific orders to do so.

One official told Reuters that Trump has said that “once ISIS and its remnants are destroyed that the United States would be looking toward having countries in the region playing a larger role in ensuring security and leaving it at that.”

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Still, that Trump is inclined to pull U.S. forces out of the war-torn country is likely to set him apart from many top officials, who have advocated for a longer-term plan in Syria.

According to Reuters, some of Trump’s national security advisers have recommended keeping U.S. troops in Syria for at least a couple years to ensure that militants do not regain territory and to keep Iranian involvement at bay.

Top national security aides have yet to settle on a strategy for Syria to recommend to the president, one official told the news outlet.

The revelation that Trump has privately expressed interest in an early withdrawal from Syria lends credence to comments he made in a speech on Thursday in Ohio, where he said that the U.S. would be “coming out of Syria, like, very soon.”

“Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon, very soon, we’re coming out,” he said. “We’re going to get back to our country, where we belong, where we want to be.”

Those remarks, four officials told Reuters, were unexpected. 

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whom Trump unceremoniously fired earlier this month, laid out a plan for an indefinite U.S. military presence in Syria during a speech in January.

The notion of an early withdrawal from Syria could also pit Trump against his new national security adviser, John Bolton, who warned in a tweet in October that ISIS militants would remain active in the region and Iran’s influence would continue to grow, even after ISIS’s self-declared caliphate is gone.

The caliphate in Syria & Iraq is gone, but #ISIS’s terrorist activities will continue and #Iran is becoming a bigger player in the region.

— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) October 20, 2017