OK, I know US policy in Syria seems a Riddle of the Sphinx type of deal, but it isn’t really, even if your only guide is splotchy reporting. So in light of Erodgan’s WH visit, let me try to break it down for you...

Trump wanted out of Syria and the broader ME and was convinced that Putin and Erdogan could relieve him of this burden. Erdogan made the most convincing case, namely that the US relied on terrorists to defeat terrorism and Turkey would take it from here.

This precipitated Trump’s notorious WH statement, which was indeed a green-light for Turkey’s invasion. A clarifying moment for not just the US military but also local actors in eastern (not northeastern) Syria who realized what life without the US would look like...

It would mean a return of the Assad regime, and Iran, and possibly the first-time arrival of Russia, into terrain deeply inhospitable to those state actors. There was a bit of a groundswell of support for the US in these areas (Deir Ezzour in particular) which no doubt...

Contributed to a certain mentality at DoD that Syria isn’t quite the unsalvagable nightmare the president suggests it is. Also, yes, the threat of an ISIS resurgence looms large to US military planners.

So... the Pentagon presented the president with an innovative plan: “Sir, let us take the oil fields of Syria and prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy. You yourself said this was a big mistake of how we fought the Iraq war. We carried the burden...”

“... let us reap the spoils.” Trump understands this language innately, but he was also being prevailed upon by Turkey, which made the case that the foremost US proxy against ISIS was a terror organization, and the US had more to gain by...

Letting Erdogan invade NE Syria and assume the responsibility of managing the borderland and also (yes) threatening Europe with the prospect of sending ISIS jihadists back to their countries of origin. To Trump, this seemed an ideal situation.

No, he didn’t care about the proxies Turkey relied on. No, he didn’t care about the Kurdish militias which beat back ISIS. He only wanted a diminished US responsibility in the ME.

The problem is, he did not anticipate the backlash to his off-the-cuff policy making, or the fact that ISIS might gain from such stupidity. And now he faced the problem of selling to his base a volte-face, which he didn’t really want to do anyway...

So the Pentagon came up with an ingenious solution. Appeal to the commander-in-chief in his own terms, make this about America cashing in on its multi-billion dollar investment to destroy the caliphate. And hey, it worked! Except Trump isn’t a details man...

And “guarding the oil fields” isn’t the only thing US troops are going to do in Syria. They’re there to gather intelligence; to continue to partner with the SDF for anti-ISIS missions; to enjoy a staging ground for countering pro-regime forces looking to capitalize on the US’s...

Counterrorism strategy; and to basically signal to the world that the US isn’t abdicating its role as global security guarantor but, in fact, doubling down.

What I would look for now is the following:

How might Erdogan convince Trump to further reduce America’s footprint in Syria, either out of Turkish national interest or as part of some scheme Erdogan entered into with Putin and perhaps Qassem Soleimani.

How will the US attemp to do what it claimed, sotto voce, to want to do for several years now: Minimize the reliance on the PKK in Syria, and maximize the potential of Syrian Arab tribal actors to govern and patrol their own spaces.

I know it’s a source of derision in Washington, but... US policy planners won’t have ignored the protests in Deir Ezzor against not just the return of the regime but also the incursion of Iranian militias. In a darkly ironic fashion, Trump has...

Shown what Syrian Arabs (and not a few Syrian Kurds) want from the US — not a short-term, pragmatic military partnership but a long term geopolitical alliance. The US has basically said: “You won’t love us till we’re gone.” And, amazingly, it’s worked.

This has created potential for the Pentagon to establish more long-term relationships with local Syrian actors. I’m not saying it will or that this potential can be realized. But it is there. I’ve seen in the last several weeks. And so, yes, selling Trump on “the oil” is a way...

... to do mission creep such that ISIS stays down, Bashar, Putin and Soleimani stay out, and American stays in, with not just a military capability but also (more importantly) an intelligence-gathering capability about the ne’er-do-wells looking to conquer the Jazira.

Broadly, instead of looking at Erdogan as Trump’s puppet-master, it’s better to see him as a crisis to be managed by those also trying to manage Trump. So far, the worst-case scenario — immediate, categorical US withdrawal — has yet to transpire.

Focus on the fact that the US now, by its own admission, is keeping 600 troops in Syria. Look at where they’re deployed, what materiel they bear, and what the core mission is. Matters more than Trump tweets.