Iran’s Shamkhani: US Suffered Strategic Defeat in Syria

Local Editor

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said the United States has been forced to decide to leave Syria because it has suffered a strategic defeat there, and that Washington will ultimately have no choice but to leave the whole region.

Last month, US President Donald Trump made an abrupt announcement to withdraw the roughly 2,000 American troops from Syria, claiming that the US had accomplished its goal of defeating Daesh [the Arabic acronym for terrorist ‘ISIS/ISIL’ group].

Shamkhani, however, said, "The US has had no role in defeating Daesh in Syria and has suffered defeat in its strategy there."

"In 2019, America's compulsory withdrawal from our region will begin and in the future, they will be forced to start their pullout from the Persian Gulf," the official told an international seminar on defense and security in West Asia that was held in Tehran on Monday.

Shamkhani further noted that the US withdrawal from Syria and Iraq portends "a dark future" for the United States. "Today, a trend has begun against the forces of instability in our region, which has somehow prompted the compulsory exit of the United States."

"Today, the Americans are talking about leaving Afghanistan, while they have fulfilled none of the security components there," Shamkhani added.

Trump ordered the start of withdrawing some 7,000 troops from Afghanistan, about half of the total number of American boots on the ground in the war-torn country, The New York Times reported last month. 

More than 2,400 Americans have died in Afghanistan since 2001, with 13 troops killed this year. US forces have remained bogged down in Afghanistan through the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Trump since they invaded the country 2001.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team