MG is conflating 2 different issues. MG is arguing about the larger issues of whether (or to what extent) the US should be involved in the middle east. Whereas the issue at hand is whether Trump should have withdrawn the troops in the manner that he did. Even if the argument could be made for pulling out of syria or the middle east in general, that doesn’t mean the US should suddenly do it, with out warning allies and leaving them vulnerable.

“The reason for remaining in Syria is gone.”

I completely disagree and I know the Kurds do as well. Cutting and running on allies who wanted a homeland out of the deal they made with us is not in our national interest either. An emboldened Russia is not in our national interest.

Whether they are called ISIS or reform as another group is irrelevant, a whole lot of them have been released because of Trump’s sudden withdrawal. However, I never said anything about ISIS so not sure why you mentioned them.

About 1/4 of the US oil supply comes from the middle east (as you said, most from Saudi arabia). Disrupting that supply can cause serious problems. Further, the middle east produces > 40% of all oil, if that gets disrupted it will have a significant impact on oil prices and the US, that is why the US is involved in the middle east. As for Syria specifically, it is because conflicts anywhere in the middle east can cause disruptions through out the middle east and because the US wants as big a foothold in the middle east as it can get.

“Is it too much to ask for a more balanced approach?”

No, that is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask for. However, your initial question was “why were we in syria to begin with?” and the short answer is “oil”.

A case can be made for the fight against ISIS, but ISIS is not a meaningful power any more, and, other than a few attacks inspired by the ideology, they won’t be coming back.

Syria is now a messy proxy war between several different regional powers and Russia. Staying involved risks us getting entangled in a much broader war that really isn’t our affair.

And a mess in Syria doesn’t really affect our oil supply; most of our oil is now produced domestically or in Canada. Even Saudi oil isn’t really directly affected by what happens in Syria.

Sure, if Iran were to completely control Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, they would be able to intimidate Saudi Arabia, which could influence the supply of Saudi oil, but there are enough other regional players that don’t want that to happen (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Russia) that we don’t need to step in to stop that.

In WWII, we learned that not getting involved soon enough allowed Hitler to become a major power, resulting in a major, costly war that could have been prevented. Since then, the U.S. has gone overboard in the other direction, meddling in things that don’t need meddled with. Is it too much to ask for a more balanced approach?

ISIS is dead. Sure, the ideology isn’t quite gone and will probably inspire a few more attacks, but in terms of controlling territory it’s been destroyed. That reason for remaining in Syria is gone.

Now the proxy war between Russia, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel is their business.

“Why is the U.S. playing world policeman in Syria in the first place?”

Because instability in the middle east threatens the US supply of oil. Further, having a bigger foothold there gets the US greater influence in how/where that oil goes.

“We can’t solve every bad situation in the world. Why are we trying?”

the US isn’t trying to do that. Just compare the amount of effort the US has put into the middle east to that of the rest of africa or even south america.

Furthermore, ISIS would like to destroy America and kill Americans. They have attacked us and our interests. We weren’t there as police. We were there to defend ourselves. Now, Trump has undone all of that work and looked the other way while Turkey commits war crimes.

Humanitarian interventions rarely end well. See Libya, for example; rather than supporting a democratic uprising, we helped topple a dictator that, for all his brutality, at least enforced relative stability. We ended up replacing him with a civil war between rival factions and gave an opening to terrorist groups that love chaos.

We can’t solve every bad situation in the world. Why are we trying?

I’m no fan of Trump, but we should be getting out of Syria altogether.

Any way to access this from Canada?

I say both and a lot worse.