With or without US troops, Syria will be shattered, bankrupt, and violent

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In the early hours this morning, President Trump made an announcement on Twitter that shocked the U.S. national security establishment, made hawkish members of Congress queasy, and sent Pentagon officials scrambling to figure out exactly what happened. Less than two months after national security adviser John Bolton was pledging to keep U.S. troops in Syria for as long as Iranian personnel and pro-Iranian militias were operating on Syrian soil, Trump said American ground forces would be pulling out in short order.