US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has called a swift US withdrawal from Syria a “strategic blunder,” saying Syrian President Bashar Assad will “take advantage” of a resulting power “vacuum.”
Speaking at a NATO defense minister meeting in Brussels on Friday, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis claimed that a US withdrawal from Syria would depend on the success of UN-brokered Geneva peace talks.
“In Syria, leaving the field before the special envoy Staffan de Mistura achieves success in advancing the Geneva political process we all signed for under the UN security council resolution would be a strategic blunder, undercutting our diplomats and giving the terrorists the opportunity to recover,” he said, according to a PressTV report.
Mattis also warned that a US withdrawal from Syria would create a “vacuum” that President Bashar Assad and his allies would “take advantage of” — a remark considered by many to be an ill-considered attempt at a euphemism for Damascus restoring order in its own country.
“Our military campaign in Syria continues,” Mattis said. “As the operations ultimately draw to a close, we must avoid leaving a vacuum in Syria that can be exploited by the Assad regime or its supporters.”
The US and NATO has a history of “creating vacuum,” according to some, particularly as the toppling of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, followed by a poorly-executed withdrawal from the country led to the creation of Daesh.
The Western invasion…
