Trump Wants to Leave the Middle East. He’s Not Getting His Wish.
The new deployment is a small fraction of the tens of thousands of troops already there. But it’s designed to send a signal to Iran.
Updated at 3:00 p.m. ET on May 24, 2019.
President Donald Trump is learning, like two presidents before him, that wanting to get out of the Middle East isn’t enough to make it happen.
On Friday the Pentagon announced that it would send 1,500 troops to the region in what officials described as a “force protection” measure because of what they’ve called increased Iranian threats, including to American troops. The United States currently has thousands of troops in Iraq and Syria, in many cases in close proximity to Iranian-backed militias, with whom they’ve maintained a de facto truce as both focused on fighting ISIS.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Acting Assistant Secretary of
