Trump does not have a foreign policy. He has a series of impulses.

Three months ago, President Trump suddenly withdrew U.S. forces from northern Syria that were, in part, thwarting Iran’s efforts to dominate the country, declaring, “Going into the Middle East is one of the worst decisions ever made in the history of our country. It’s like quicksand.” Well, last week he dramatically escalated America’s military engagement in the region, ordering a strike on Iran’s most important military leader and deploying thousands more troops. How to make sense of this Middle East policy?

It gets more confusing. Around the same time that he was urgently withdrawing U.S. troops from what he called the “bloodstained sand” of Syria, Trump sent 3,000 additional troops to Saudi Arabia. (When asked why, he answered that the Saudis were paying good money for this deployment.) And just a few weeks after announcing the Syria withdrawal, he reversed himself and left some troops in the north “for the oil.” All clear now?

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