2/22/2018

FOREIGN POLICY/IRAQ/REX TILLERSON/STATE/SYRIA: “The Trump administration has decided that it needs no new legal authority from Congress to indefinitely keep American military forces deployed in Syria and Iraq, even in territory that has been cleared of Islamic State fighters, according to Pentagon and State Department officials.
In a pair of letters, the officials illuminated the Trump administration’s planning for an open-ended mission of forces in Syria beyond the Islamic State fight. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson foreshadowed the plan in a speech last month, saying that troops will stay in Syria to curb Iran and prevent the Syrian government from reconquering rebel-held areas…
About 2,000 American troops are in Syria, where nearly all the territory once held by the Islamic State has now been liberated. Mr. Tillerson deemed the group ‘substantially, but not completely defeated,’ warning that the insurgents remained a threat.
Mr. Trachtenberg wrote the letter to Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, who had asked the Trump administration to explain its understanding of its authority to stay on in Syria. The State Department sent him a similar letter, which also argued that international law provided a basis for American forces to remain in Syria — despite the lack of consent from the Syrian government — to protect Iraq and the United States from terrorists.
And both letters said American troops may strike at Syrian government or Iranian forces deemed to threaten Americans or Syrian rebel groups that are assisting the United States in fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.”

-Charlie Savage, “U.S. Says Troops Can Stay in Syria Without New Authorization,” The New York Times online, Feb. 22, 2018