United States to end support for rebels in Northwest Syria.

A man walks in a damaged city in Syria. Getty/The Hill

The United States will end support for rebels in Northwest Syria, signaling a willingness to pull out from the country. The Hill. Millions of dollars worth of aid going towards anti-extremism and education will be cut. The funding cut will be the first in Syria where the United States will be pulling out. The money will be transferred to Northeast Syria where US backed forces are still fighting ISIS. ISIS has been eliminated from Northwest Syria and the area is largely under control of the regime or the al-Qadea aligned al-Nusra Front. 

My Comment:

A welcome move from the Trump administration. The Syrian resistance in Northwest Syria is a joke right now. There are almost no secular rebels left in the region and what little remains have fallen under control of al-Nusra. 

Indeed, I have long argued that our support of those rebels was essentially giving help to an al-Qaeda affiliate. Back during the Obama administration, rebels trained in the area regularly betrayed US forces or simply laid down their arms when confronted by al-Nusra. 

We had little incentive to stay in this region of Syria. The rebels there weren't attacking ISIS, they were attacking the Syrian government. Regime change wasn't on the table so we had no reason to help these rebels. 

I don't believe the argument that we should keep funding the programs we had there. It was pretty obvious that we weren't accomplishing anything in the region in the first place. Like I said, al-Nusra was in control of the region anyways so it's not like we were going to change any hearts and minds. 

I do think there is an argument that we should do something about al-Nusra in Syria. We could attack them but the status quo is to do nothing. Why? Well, Turkey is using al-Nusra, indirectly, as a proxy army against the Kurds. We don't want to get involved in that mess. Still, leaving al-Nusra alive and kicking could end up biting us. Right now they are a local terror group but they could always expand to international attacks. 

I think this is a good sign that President Trump was serious about limiting our goals in Syria and eventually leaving the country. Of course, our main goal, defeating ISIS, has not yet happened yet. The terror group still has some territory left in the eastern part of the country and an affiliate controls some of the border with Jordan and Israel. As long as that is the case we will likely keep a presence in the country.

But it does look like when ISIS is finally stopped in Syria we will pull out troops. The hawk wing of the Republican party, along with hawks in the Democrats, want us to take out Assad. Doing so wouldn't help things and I think President Trump agrees with that. But there was fear that the hawks in his administration would convince him otherwise. I think this move proves that isn't going to be the case. Those hawks will hate this move but it is the right thing to do if we want to pull out of Syria.