Get U.S. Troops Out of Syria Now

U.S. troops have no business being in Syria, and Congress has never authorized a military mission in Syria for any purpose.

The White House says that Biden is “absolutely” committed to keeping U.S. troops in Syria:

Kirby added that Biden is “absolutely” committed to keeping American troops in Syria, where they are stationed to fight back any remnants of ISIS forces.

U.S. troops have no business being in Syria, and Congress has never authorized a military mission in Syria for any purpose. The problem with the illegal U.S. military presence in Syria isn’t just that its official justification no longer makes sense, but that they have been sent into Syria and kept there for years solely on the president’s say-so. The original mission was unauthorized by Congress, and everything since then has likewise been unauthorized. The U.S. also has no international mandate for operating on Syrian territory, and it definitely doesn’t have the permission of the Syrian government to be there. When the White House says that Biden is absolutely committed to keeping troops in Syria, they are saying that he is absolutely committed to violating both the Constitution and international law.

Keeping U.S. troops in Syria also makes no sense as a matter of policy. There is no threat in Syria today that the U.S. is plausibly defending itself against, but then there never was. If the U.S. left Syria tomorrow, it would not compromise U.S. or allied security in the slightest. To the extent that the fight against ISIS served any U.S. interests, the main fight was done years ago and there is no need for U.S. forces to hang around indefinitely to prevent some possible future resurgence. U.S. troops and contractors are being put at risk for no good reason, and that ought to be a cause for outrage in Washington. Instead, it mostly goes unnoticed until one of them is killed, and even then there is not much of a reaction.

Most members of Congress refuse to do their jobs when it comes to matters of war. When the House had a chance to vote for a war powers resolution that would require the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Syria, they overwhelmingly opposed the measure. They can’t be bothered to debate and vote on these wars, but they will resist any attempt to end them. It’s a disgrace and it’s a dereliction of their duty as elected representatives, but it is unfortunately all too predictable.

It is notable that the New York Times report uses the word reprisal to describe what the U.S. is doing rather than repeating the government’s “self-defense” line. If U.S. strikes are reprisals, they aren’t defensive, and that means that the president doesn’t have the proper authority to order them. Repelling an ongoing attack or imminent threat is self-defense, but launching a later attack of one’s own on other targets is not self-defense. The reprisals also obviously fail to discourage further attacks. The answer to this is not to intensify the reprisals, as some of the hawks quoted in the article recommend.

It should go without saying that there is no compelling U.S. interest in waging a low-level war with Iranian-backed militias in Syria. U.S. troops are coming under attack from these militias solely because they are in Syria. The strikes that the U.S. conducts against these militias are pointless reprisals that simply invite more attacks, so the tit-for-tat attacks will continue or there will be escalation at some point down the road. The U.S. reportedly refrained from launching more strikes in response to the latest attack because the administration claims it doesn’t want escalation. The best way to avoid possible escalation of the conflict is to remove our forces from Syria as soon as possible.