The United States is considering using forces it currently has deployed in Syria after ISIS has been defeated to stop Iran from creating its “land bridge” stretching beyond its borders across the region to Lebanon.
Reports The Wall Street Journal: “The Trump administration is turning its focus to what it sees as a bigger threat: Iran.”
The report suggested that the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria could be used to thwart Iran’s expansion throughout the region.
“Our leadership has set as an objective not to allow Iran and its proxies to be able to establish a presence in Syria that they can use to threaten our allies or us in the region,” an unnamed senior U.S. administration official told the Journal. “There are different ways to implement that, and we are still working through them.”
At present, the paper said, it is believed that Iran now supplies 80 percent of personnel for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s depleted armed forces, giving Tehran tremendous influence with his regime.
By some estimates, there are 125,000 Iranian forces currently in Syria.
“One major issue the Trump administration has to address is whether to make confronting Iran an explicit new goal for the more than 2,000 American forces currently in Syria,” the paper reported. [source]
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