A slow withdrawal from Syria isn't responsible. It's reckless.

Why Trump's newfound interest in a slow withdrawal is a red flag, no matter what Lindsey Graham says

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | MOHAMAD ABAZEED/AFP/Getty Images, SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Here is a good rule of thumb: If Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) expresses personal comfort with the timeline for a planned withdrawal from any of the United States' various wars, it is safe to assume the "withdrawal" label has become a misnomer.

Such may be the case with President Trump's planned exit from Syria. Trump himself has changed his framing of the proposal since its announcement last month, tweeting Monday that he would be "slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time fighting [Islamic State] remnants." This suggests a markedly different timeline than that conjured by Trump tweets from a week or two prior, which envisioned American soldiers leaving forthwith while regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia took up the task of moving Syria toward some sort of stability.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.