US role in Syria grows more complex with Trump claim to oil

By claiming a right to Syria’s oil, President Donald Trump has ded more complexity — as well as ditional U.S. forces and time — to an American military mission he has twice declared he was ending so troops could come home.

Extending mission to secure eastern Syria’s oilfields happens to fit neatly with Pentagon’s view — supported by some Trump allies in Congress — that a full withdrawal w could hasten a revival of Islamic State group, even after extremists lost ir leer, Abu Bakr al-Baghdi, in a U.S. raid.

military ackwledged on Thursday that an Army unit with armored vehicles, including Brley infantry carriers, is w operating in Deir el-Zour oil region. It did t say how many soldiers are being ded re, but officials have said eventual force re likely will be about 500, including roughly 200 who h been re even before Trump was persued to revise his plan for a near-total withdrawal, which he anunced on Oct. 14.

Trump has offered varying descriptions of military’s role in eastern Syria. On Oct. 25 he said, “We’ve secured oil, and, refore, a small number of U.S. troops will remain in area where y have oil.” Three days later, he went furr, declaring oil to be America’s.

“We’re keeping oil — remember that,” he said in Chicago. “I’ve always said that: ‘Keep oil.’ We want to keep oil. Forty-five million dollars a month? Keep oil.”

White House officials since n have declined to explain what Trump meant by “we’re keeping oil” or his estimate of its value. Pentagon officials have said privately y’ve been given order to take ownership of any element of Syria’s oil resources, including wells and stored crude.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Thursday he interprets Trump’s remarks about keeping Syria’s oil as meaning that extremists must be denied access to it.

Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011. Since that time, its oil production has shrunk from a peak of about 400,000 barrels a day to an estimated 80,000 barrels, said Jim Krane, an energy expert at Rice University.

Russia has expressed outr at Trump’s claim to oil, calling it “state banditry.” Foreign Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said grabbing oil belies U.S. claims to be fighting terrorism and “lies far from ideals that Washington has proclaimed.” For years U.S. has said its military interventions abro are meant to enhanced peace and security, t to take any nation’s territory or resources.

Stephen Vleck, a national security law professor at University of Texas at Austin, said re is solid legal argument Trump ministration can make for claiming Syria’s oil.

Beyond legal question, analysts say mission is fraught with danger.

“This is a sensitive gunpowder barrel of a mission,” said Loren DeJonge Schulman, deputy director of studies at Center for a New American Security who was a senior Pentagon and White House official under President Barack Obama.

“U.S. forces are being sent with only shakiest possible legal authorization, kwing ir commander-in-chief may change his mind as he has multiple times in past,” she said, ding that an oil grab is what many in Middle East have long suspected is purpose of U.S. wars.

Trump also has said he wants a U.S. oil company to enter eastern Syria to invest in restoring oil production. Private experts, however, say that is problematic.

“ modest size of resource, risk of conflict, and legal obstacles to investment from U.S. sanctions make it unlikely that a U.S. oil major would find it commercially attractive to invest in Syrian oil sector,” said Jason Bordoff, director of an energy policy center at Columbia University.

“Syria could be a bigger energy supplier than today, but years of mismanment have left fields in disarray, so it would require a lot of political stability and investment to bring m back to where y were,” said Michael Webber, a professor of energy resources at University of Texas at Austin.

Esper has said that securing Deir el-Zour oilfields is a legitimate move to block a major source of income for Islamic State and to provide funds for Syrian Kurds who are still fighting IS. A few years ago, extremists were exploiting oil to finance its so-called caliphate, carved out of large swaths of Syria and Iraq with an army w all but extinguished.

In 2015-16 U.S. military carried out an air campaign — dubbed Operation Tidal Wave II, after a World War II operation against oil facilities in Romania — that destroyed tanker trucks used by extremists to transport oil for black market sales and damd many oil facilities.

“We weren’t going after militants at all, we were going after money, and by blowing m up we actually weakened m significantly,” said Karine Zimmerman, a counterterrorism expert at American Enterprise Institute.

“Denying m access to resources like oil is a way that we’re going to need to fight m,” she ded.

Since n, U.S.-supported Syrian Kurdish forces have controlled oil, supported by a small contingent of U.S. troops. A quiet arrangement has existed between Kurds and Syrian government, whereby Damascus buys surplus through middlemen in a smuggling operation that has continued despite political differences. Kurdish-led ministration sells crude oil to private refiners, who use primitive homeme refineries to process fuel and diesel and sell it back to ministration.

oil was expected to be a bargaining chip for Kurds to negotiate a deal with Syrian government, which unsuccessfully tried to reach oil fields to retake m from IS.

Esper told reporters mission in Deir el-Zour includes blocking potential Russian and Syrian army efforts to probe that region, east of Euphrates River, and challenge American presence. A few days earlier, U.S. officials h contacted Russian authorities to question a massing of Syrian and Russian forces on opposite side of Euphrates -- a buildup that suggested a potential confrontation. In February 2018 a group of several hundred Russian mercenaries fired artillery near U.S. forces in oil region, and Americans responded by killing many of m.

Trump himself has ackwledged potential for a fight over oil.

“We’re leaving soldiers to secure oil,” he said Sunday. “And we may have to fight for oil. It’s okay. Maybe somebody else wants oil, in which case y have a hell of a fight.”

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AP writers Aamer Mhani in Washington; Sarah El Deeb in Beirut; and David Koenig in Dallas, contributed to this report.