US playing everybody to protect its interests in Syria

Muazz Mohamed

US President Donald Trump said on December 4 that his country had already controlled Syria’s oilfields and that it had the freedom to do with it whatever it wants.

He added at a meeting with NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, on the sidelines of the NATO summit in London that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) had tried to maintain its control on the Syrian oilfields.

He noted that in controlling the fields, the US enjoys support from a large number of divergent people.

Trump added that American troops are in Syria only to protect the oilfields.

The US president cares only about his country’s interests when it comes to northern Syria. He hammered out an alliance with the Kurds in the war against ISIS. He then overran the oilfields which were liberated from ISIS by the Kurds.

Letting the Kurds down

Trump declared the pullout of his troops from Syria on October 9, 2019. In this, he betrayed the trust of the Kurds. His decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria came after Turkey said it would launch its operation “Peace Spring” in the same area.

On October 10, Trump justified the pullout of American troops from northern Syria by saying that the Kurds had not help the US in World War II.

However, a senior Pentagon official said on October 16 that his country wanted to maintain cooperation with Syrian Democratic Forces, QSD, in the fight against ISIS.

The American newspaper, The Washington Post, said on October 16 that Trump cannot claim that he did not know the real intentions of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in northern Syria.

Trump, the newspaper said, talked on the phone with Erdogan on October 6, before he ordered the pullout of American troops from northern Syria.

Protecting the nuclear base

Some American reports referred, meanwhile, to a plan by the US to move 50 nuclear bombs from the Incirlik base in southern Turkey to another place.

The reports added that the US had been keeping the bombs at the base since the Cold War with the former Soviet Union.

The New York Times quoted an American official as saying that US nuclear weapons have practically become at Erdogan’s custody.

The newspaper warned in a report on October 22 the US may not enjoy access to the base, if its relations with Turkey deteriorate at any point in the future.