Obama’s Syria Ambassador Has a Surprising Response to Trump’s Decision

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to begin pulling American troops from Syria was met with criticism and outcry from pundits and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, but former Ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford called the move “essentially correct.”

Critics of Trump’s decision announced on Dec. 19 by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, are calling it a “huge Obama-like mistake,” win for America’s enemies and betrayal of our allies.

But Ford, who served as U.S. ambassador to Syria under President Barack Obama from 2011-2014, debunked the reasons for critique and added that the president needs to develop a national security team that can better relay and implement his foreign policy objectives.

“[T]he president should view the hullabaloo that erupted after he announced the Syrian pullout as an opportunity to take a number of steps to make the most of his essentially correct, but widely unpopular, move,” Ford wrote Thursday in The Washington Post.

Ford pointed out that many opponents fear the pullout will lend a victory to Russia, Iran and Syria, but the former ambassador called this fear “absurd,” noting that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime already controls roughly two-thirds of Syria. The regions that the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) control are largely deserts and drought-prone oil fields with low-value crude. (Read more from “Obama’s Syria Ambassador Has a Surprising Response to Trump’s Decision” HERE)

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