Trump in conflict with 'deep state' over troop deployment: Analyst

The administration of US President Donald Trump is in conflict with intelligence agencies over deploying American troops to Syria to fight the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group, an American political analyst in Virginia says.

“Right now there’s a great deal of conflict within the American government itself; the Trump administration and what we call the ‘deep state’ or a lot of conventional intelligence services are heavily in conflict with one another,” said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com.

Some political scientists, writers and journalists in the United States have for decades expressed concerns about the existence of a so-called “deep state” or state within a state, which they argue exerts control and influence over public policy, regardless of which political party controls the country's democratic institutions.

Under the Trump administration, the term deep state has been used by some news organizations to refer to intelligence officials and executive branch bureaucrats guiding policy through leaking or other means of internal dissent.

“We saw that [conflict between Trump and the 'deep state'] this week with the resignation of the national security advisor, General Michael Flynn; so there’s a great deal of turmoil within the foreign policy apparatus of the United States,” Preston told Press TV on Thursday.

The resignation of  Flynn on Monday and the continuing turmoil inside the White House have deeply rattled the Washington establishment.

Preston said there seems to be a conflict between the Trump administration and the deep state over the goal of the Western military intervention in Syria. Trump seeks to eliminate ISIL and keep President Bashar al-Assad in power, whereas some intelligence and military officials are pursuing the opposite goal.

CNN reported on Wednesday that the US Defense Department may recommend that the United States deploy regular combat troops to Syria to fight Daesh terrorists.

“It's possible that you may see conventional forces hit the ground in Syria for some period of time,” CNN quoted a Pentagon official.

During the presidential campaign, Trump had openly supported deploying a large contingent of US troops to Syria.

The US has already sent several hundred of its special operations forces to Syria. However, their operations have been limited to what the Pentagon describes as training and assisting Kurdish fighters in their battle against Daesh (ISIL) and other terrorist groups.

When authorizing the limited deployments, then-US President Barack Obama had stressed that conventional ground troops were not an option.

The US and its allies have been carrying out airstrikes against alleged Daesh positions in Syria and neighboring Iraq since 2014.

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