FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 20, 2018
Contact: press@defensepriorities.org
WASHINGTON, DC—Following President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, the Washington foreign policy establishment recycled arguments for a permanent military presence in that country without justifying U.S. security or prosperity interest.
In response to the fear mongering from Beltway elites, Defense Priorities Policy Director Benjamin H. Friedman issued the following statement:
“If the country embraced the arguments of interventionists like Sens. Lindsay Graham (SC), Jack Reed (RI), and Robert Menendez (NJ), the United States would never leave Syria, we’d still have a hundred of thousands of troops in Iraq, and U.S. forces would endlessly toil in that region’s civil wars, draining U.S. taxpayers to nation-build.
“The United States did not go into Syria to tilt the balance of its civil war, depose Assad, build a new Syria, or establish a Kurdish statelet. The U.S. military was to liberate territory held by the Islamic State. Syria is a poor country in the midst of civil war, not a strategic prize that heightens rivals’ power.
“The war in Syria these senators support so energetically has never been authorized by the body in which they serve.”
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