[ForeignPolicy] The president's shift in policy has been portrayed as a surprise—but America's foreign-policy machinery was quietly tasked with preparing for it months ago.Washington narratives, once determined, are almost impossible to change. A pristine example has been President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, which prominent foreign-policy voices condemned as impulsive, dangerous, and a betrayal of America's Kurdish allies. Worse yet, the withdrawal order came about, these same experts say, because of the U.S. chief executive's ties to (choose one) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian President Vladimir Putin, or, most recently, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul.
Gotta keep that "He is crazy" narrative going
But the narrative doesn't fit the reality of Trump's Syria decision. Far from being caught by surprise, senior State Department and Pentagon officials were tasked earlier in 2018 with planning for the eventual withdrawal. While it's true that, as one foreign-policy commentator recently noted, Trump's Syria decision took place without an "interagency review, an often-prolonged process that methodically develops options," or even "major deliberations with allies," the idea that Trump's decision shocked Washington's foreign-policy machinery needs to be rethought. "This wasn't a surprise," a senior State Department official who works on Middle East issues told me last week. "We've been talking about getting our troops out of Syria since at least last March."