OPINION — President Trump’s sending U.S. military troops to control the oil fields in northern Syria can only be interpreted as introducing financial deal-making into his running of U.S. foreign and national security policies.
Trump made clear in his Sunday press conference that he sees control of the Syrian oil fields as America’s reward, perhaps to be shared with Kurdish allies, for defeating ISIS and killing of its founder and leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62
Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.
Subscriber+