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By Jordan Davidson
\nThe Federalist<\/p>\n
Senior U.S. Diplomat and special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey repeatedly lied to the Trump administration about how many troops were stationed in Syria over the last four years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,\u201d Jeffrey said in an interview.<\/a><\/p>\n While President Donald Trump announced late in 2018 that he would be withdrawing troops from Syria following the defeat of the Islamic State, Jeffrey, whose\u00a0term ended on Sunday<\/a>, and his team continually found reasons to prevent total removal from the region.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal,\u201d Jeffrey said. \u201cWhen the situation in northeast Syria had been fairly stable after we defeated ISIS, [Trump] was inclined to pull out. In each case, we then decided to come up with five better arguments for why we needed to stay, and we succeeded both times. That\u2019s the story.\u201d<\/p>\n While Trump eventually approved stationing between 200 and 400 U.S. troops in Syria to assist the U.S.\u2019s Kurdish allies, officials estimate there are at least 900 troops there today.<\/p>\n Jeffrey, who previously served as deputy national security adviser under George W. Bush, signed a 2016 \u201cNeverTrump\u201d\u00a0letter<\/a>, along with dozens of other national security and foreign policy officials who worked under Bush, pledging he would never vote for the then-Republican presidential nominee.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom a foreign policy perspective, Donald Trump is not qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief,\u201d the letter read. \u201cIndeed we are convinced that he would be a dangerous President and would put at risk our country\u2019s national security and well-being.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeffrey shows no remorse for signing the letter, saying, \u201cI know what I did in 2016. I do not disagree with that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was following closely the situation with Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and I was appalled that we didn\u2019t have a more coherent policy. This wasn\u2019t a political decision,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Despite his strong past and present opposition to Trump, Jeffrey can\u2019t deny how the president\u2019s foreign policy initiatives brought stability to the Middle East. According to Jeffrey, one of the key contributing factors to this stability was that Trump motivated Middle East alliances.<\/p>\n During his time as commander-in-chief, Trump secured three historic peace deals in the Middle East in less than three months through the signing of\u00a0the Abraham Accords<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0Bahrain<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0United Arab Emirates,<\/a>\u00a0as well as generating a contract with\u00a0Sudan<\/a>, all of which established full diplomatic relations of the countries with Israel.<\/p>\n Jeffrey admitted that many of them are sad to see the president go and encouraged the ostensible incoming Biden administration to follow in Trump\u2019s foreign policy footsteps.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody really wants to see President Trump go, among all our allies [in the Middle East],\u201d he said. \u201cThe truth is President Trump and his policies are quite popular among all of our popular states in the region. Name me one that\u2019s not happy.\u201d<\/p>\n