Comments on Seizing Syria Oil Reinforces Anti-American Sentiment, Experts Warn

While U.S. President Donald Trump this week reiterated his administration's intention to keep some American troops in Syria to control the country's eastern oilfields, experts and observers warn the president's comments could promote the view that the U.S. involvement in the Middle East is to extort revenue.

"We are leaving soldiers to secure the oil," Trump said on Sunday, while announcing the death of the Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during a raid in Syria's northwestern governorate of Idlib near the Turkish border. "And we may have to fight for the oil. It is OK. Maybe somebody else wants the oil, in which case they have a hell of a fight. But there's massive amounts of oil."

Read the full story and more in Voice of America.