Trump says Syria ‘not our fight’. Staying out may not be so easy

Trump’s rhetoric harkens back to how he talked about Syria during his first term, when he derided the country – which has an extraordinary cultural history dating back millennia – as a land of “sand and death”.

“Donald Trump, himself, I think really wanted very little to do with Syria during his first administration,” said Robert Ford, who served as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Syria from 2011-14, and who argued within that administration for more American intervention in the form of support for Syrian moderate opposition groups to counter Assad’s brutal suppression of his population.

“But there are other people in his circle who are much more concerned about counterterrorism,” he told the BBC.

The US currently has around 900 troops in Syria east of the Euphrates river and in a 55km (34 miles) “deconfliction” zone bordering Iraq and Jordan.

Their official mission is to counter the IS group, now much degraded in desert camps, and to train and equip the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF – Kurdish and Arab allies of the US who control the territory).

The SDF also guards camps containing IS fighters and their families.

In practice, the US presence on the ground has also gone beyond this, helping to block a potential weapons transit route for Iran, which used Syria to supply its ally Hezbollah.

Mr Ford, like other analysts, believes that while Trump’s isolationist instincts play well on social media, the realities on the ground and the views of his own team could end up moderating his stance.

That view is echoed by Wa’el Alzayat, a former adviser on Syria at the US Department of State.

“He is bringing on board some serious people to his administration who will be running his Middle East file,” he told the BBC, specifically noting that Senator Marco Rubio, who has been nominated for secretary of state, “is a serious foreign policy player”.

These tensions – between isolationist ideals and regional goals – also came to a head during his first term, when Trump withdrew remaining CIA funding for some “moderate” rebels, and ordered the withdrawal of US forces from northern Syria in 2019.

At the time, Waltz called the move “a strategic mistake” and, fearing an IS resurgence, Trump’s own officials partially rowed back his decision.

Trump also diverged from his non-interventionist ideals by launching 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield, after Assad allegedly ordered a chemical weapons attack that killed scores of civilians in 2017.

He also doubled down on sanctions against Syria’s leadership.

The blurred lines of Trump’s “it’s not our fight” pledge were summed up by Waltz.

“That doesn’t mean he’s not willing to absolutely step in,” he told Fox News.

“President Trump has no problem taking decisive action if the American homeland is threatened in any way.”