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UN-DIPLOMACY-US-SYRIA-CONFLICT-IRAN
US says to stay in Syria as long as Iran, but maybe not militarily
UNITED NATIONS, United States, Sept 28, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The United States
will stay in Syria as long as rival Iran maintains its presence, but the US
role will not necessarily involve troops, a senior official said Thursday.
James Jeffrey, the US special representative on Syria, was clarifying
recent comments by senior officials who appeared to suggest that troops would
stay indefinitely to counter Iran.
Such an objective would drastically alter the mission in Syria first
authorized by president Barack Obama who set a goal of defeating the Islamic
State extremist group, which also considers Iran a foe.
Asked if President Donald Trump was making US withdrawal contingent on the
removal of Iranian forces, Jeffrey told reporters on the sidelines of the
United Nations: “The president wants us in Syria until that and the other
conditions are met.
But he added: “‘Us’ is not necessarily American boots on the ground.”
“There are many ways that we can be on the ground. We’re certainly on the
ground diplomatically,” he said, while adding that no options were definite.
“Boots on the ground have the current mission of the enduring defeat of
ISIS,” he said.
The United States has some 2,000 troops in Syria, mainly training and
advising both Kurdish forces and Syrian Arabs opposed to President Bashar al-
Assad.
Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton, long hawkish on Iran, said
Monday on Syria: “We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are
outside Iranian borders.”
Iran, which is ruled by Shiite clerics, has been giving both direct
support to Assad, a secular leader hailing from the Alawite minority sect,
and backing him through the Shiite Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, speaking to reporters on Wednesday, said
Tehran was out to defeat the Islamic State group and would stay as long as
requested by the Syrian government.
He rejected the Trump administration’s warnings, questioning why the
United States was involved militarily so far from home in the first place.
The Trump administration, which is close to Iran’s rivals Saudi Arabia and
Israel, has withdrawn from a deal on ending Iran’s nuclear program and vowed
to challenge Tehran’s influence in Syria as well as Yemen and Iraq.
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