The Lawfare Podcast: Exiting Syria and the Rest of the Iceberg

Jen Patja
Saturday, December 22, 2018, 1:30 PM

This week, President Trump made the unexpected announcement that he was immediately withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria, ending their involvement in the counter-ISIS campaign that the United States has led there for the last four years. As the week went on, it became clear that the decision on Syria was just the tip of the iceberg.

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This week, President Trump made the unexpected announcement that he was immediately withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria, ending their involvement in the counter-ISIS campaign that the United States has led there for the last four years. As the week went on, it became clear that the decision on Syria was just the tip of the iceberg.

To help us make sense of all that has happened over the last 72 hours, Lawfare's Scott R. Anderson sat down on Friday with a panel of Middle East experts at the Brookings Institution: Dan Byman, a senior fellow; Tamara Cofman Wittes, a senior fellow and former State Department official; and Mara Karlin, a nonresident senior fellow, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and former Pentagon official. They talked about the Syria withdrawal, what it means for U.S. policy in the Middle East moving forward, and about Defense Secretary James Mattis's resignation.


Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.

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