Nearly two weeks after meeting with Vladimir Putin and agreeing to a Syrian cease-fire with the Assad regime backing Russian President, Donald Trump has ended the CIA's involvement in the vicious conflict.

It was announced on Wednesday, July 19, that the U.S. will stop arming anti-Assad rebels; a move that Putin has long called upon the U.S. to make. Syria has been laboring through a civil war for six years, over which time nearly half a million people have been killed and over five million refugees have fled. Meanwhile, the U.S. has worked to institute immigration laws under Trump that would prevent those in flight from entering the U.S. in droves, and the international community has suffered sporadic attacks from Isis fighters; some of whom were spawned from the dysfunction in the region. Since 2013, the U.S. has assisted rebel factions in their attempts to overthrow Assad, while Russia fought to keep him in power, with the intention of preserving their economic and strategic interests in the region.

Officials say that Trump, national security advisor H.R. McMaster and CIA Director Mike Pompeo all actually met and reached the decision to abandon the mission prior to the President's meeting with Putin. The move is a curious one, considering Trump came out the gate against Syria with a heavy hand. In April, he ordered missile strikes on a Syrian airbase in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack Assad was accused of ordering against rebel civilians.

Source: washingtonpost.com