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Trump: 'We're not involved in Syria, they got their own mess'

President denies reports he is taking US troops out, but says 'we'll make a determination'

Reporting | QiOSK

In response to a question about foreign reports that he is ordering U.S. troops out of Syria, Trump said Thursday that he did not know where that came from, however, he added, "we're not involved in Syria. Syria is in its own mess. They've got enough messes over there. They don't need us involved."

Earlier this week, Israeli official broadcasting channel Kan reported that “senior White House officials conveyed a message to their Israeli counterparts indicating that President Trump intends to pull thousands of US troops from Syria.” The news was picked up by a number of foreign news outlets, but was ignored here in the U.S.

During a Q&A with reporters after an Executive Order signing session (about 13:19 in the video) at the Oval Office Thursday, Trump was asked about the report. He did not seem surprised, but was curt in his answer nonetheless. “I don’t know who said that, but we’ll make a determination on that."

The United States reportedly has some 2,000 troops in Syria, which is reeling from the December fall of Bashar al-Assad's government and the takeover of former Al-Qaeda linked militants HTS. The U.S. has been manning outposts in the northeastern part of the country throughout the Syria civil war, ostensibly to fight ISIS and provide assistance to the Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Forces, which are in charge of detention camps housing ISIS fighters. The U.S. has been conducting numerous airstrikes and raids against ISIS targets there, including the reported killing of "Muhammad Salah al-Za'bir, a senior operative in the terrorist organization Hurras al-Din (HaD), an Al-Qaeda affiliate" in a "precision airstrike in Northwest Syria" as reported by Central Command on Thursday.

But critics are hoping that Trump will "determine" that the troops on the ground are if anything in harm's way and need to come home, as he did in 2018 when he was last president and was thwarted by his own Pentagon. Since then the landscape has become more murky and volatile and critics are concerned that Washington will see the turnover in power in Syria as justification to stay longer.

“Arguing for an indefinite U.S. troop presence in Syria both overstates U.S. influence and ties troops to uncontrollable conditions,” said Quincy Institute Middle East Fellow Adam Weinstein, who is also a Marine Corps veteran of the Afghanistan War.

“Syrians have taken back their country and Washington should respond with diplomacy and sanctions relief rather than indefinite troop deployments," he added. “ISIS is largely degraded, Assad’s regime is gone, diplomatic outreach to the new leadership in Damascus is underway, and Iran’s proxy forces have taken a severe beating. There’s little reason why U.S. troops should remain in Syria.”



Top photo credit: President Donald Trump signs two executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on Thursday, January 30, 2025. The first order formally commissioned Christopher Rocheleau as deputy administrator of the FAA. The second ordered an immediate assessment of aviation safety. Photo by Bonnie Cash/Pool/Sipa USA
Reporting | QiOSK
Trump ASEAN
Top photo credit: U.S. President Donald Trump looks at Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., next to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim when posing for a family photo with leaders at the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, October 26, 2025. Vincent Thian/Pool via REUTERS

‘America First’ meets ‘ASEAN Way’ in Kuala Lumpur

Asia-Pacific

The 2025 ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Kuala Lumpur beginning today are set to be consequential multilateral gatherings — defining not only ASEAN’s internal cohesion but also the shape of U.S.–China relations in the Indo-Pacific.

President Donald Trump’s participation will be the first by a U.S. president in an ASEAN-led summit since 2022. President Biden skipped the last two such summits in 2023 and 2024, sending then-Vice President Harris instead.

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iran, china, russia
Top photo credit: Top image credit: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi shake hands as Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu looks on during their meet with reporters after their meeting at Diaoyutai State Guest House on March 14, 2025 in Beijing, China. Lintao Zhang/Pool via REUTERS

'Annulled'! Russia won't abide snapback sanctions on Iran

Middle East

“A raider attack on the U.N. Security Council.” This was the explosive accusation leveled by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov this week. His target was the U.N. Secretariat and Western powers, whom he blamed for what Russia sees as an illegitimate attempt to restore the nuclear-related international sanctions on Iran.

Beyond the fiery rhetoric, Ryabkov’s statement contained a message: Russia, he said, now considers all pre-2015 U.N. sanctions on Iran, snapped back by the European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) — the United Kingdom, France, Germany — “annulled.” Moscow will deepen its military-technical cooperation with Tehran accordingly, according to Ryabkov.

This is more than a diplomatic spat; it is the formal announcement of a split in international legal reality. The world’s major powers are now operating under two irreconcilable interpretations of international law. On one side, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany assert that the sanctions snapback mechanism of the JCPOA was legitimately triggered for Iran’s alleged violations. On the other, Iran, Russia, and China reject this as an illegitimate procedural act.

This schism was not inevitable, and its origin reveals a profound incongruence. The Western powers that most frequently appeal to the sanctity of the "rules-based international order" and international law have, in this instance, taken an action whose effects fundamentally undermine it. By pushing through a legal maneuver that a significant part of the Security Council considers illegitimate, they have ushered the world into a new and more dangerous state. The predictable, if imperfect, framework of universally recognized Security Council decisions is being replaced by a system where legal facts are determined by political interests espoused by competing power blocs.

This rupture followed a deliberate Western choice to reject compromises in a stand-off with Iran. While Iran was in a technical violation of the provisions of the JCPOA — by, notably, amassing a stockpile of highly enriched uranium (up to 60% as opposed to the 3.67% for a civilian use permissible under the JCPOA), there was a chance to avert the crisis. In the critical weeks leading to the snapback, Iran had signaled concessions in talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Cairo, in terms of renewing cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s inspectors.

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On Ukraine and Venezuela, Trump needs to dump the sycophants
Top Photo Credit: (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)

On Ukraine and Venezuela, Trump needs to dump the sycophants

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While diplomats labored to produce the Dayton Accords in 1995, then-Secretary of Defense Bill Perry advised, “No agreement is better than a bad agreement.” Given that Washington’s allies in London, Paris, Berlin and Warsaw are opposed to any outcome that might end the war in Ukraine, no agreement may be preferable. But for President Trump, there is no point in equating the illusion of peace in Ukraine with a meaningless ceasefire that settles nothing.

Today, Ukraine is mired in corruption, starting at the very highest levels of the administration in Kyiv. Sending $175 billion of borrowed money there "for however long it takes" has turned out to be worse than reckless. The U.S. national sovereign debt is surging to nearly $38 trillion and rising by $425 billion with each passing month. President Trump needs to turn his attention away from funding Joe Biden’s wars and instead focus on the faltering American economy.

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