WarSclerotic

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American forces from Syria will not affect Israeli policy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

Israel will “continue to act against Iran’s attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria, and to the extent necessary, we will even expand our actions there,” Netanyahu said.

Israel, like others, was caught off-guard by Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw all the roughly 2,000 U.S. forces from Syria in the coming weeks.

The announcement sparked the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the global coalition fighting the Islamic State group. Several Republicans said leaving Syria was an abandonment of American allies, such as Israel.

Netanyahu, who flaunts a good rapport with Trump, said Sunday that Israel’s cooperation with the U.S. “will continue in full.”