President Trump had kicked off this week by saying that there is “legitimate peace in the Middle East for the first time in 3,000 years,” comments that came after three Americans, including two National Guard members and a civilian interpreter, were killed in Syria. The president made the remark when asked why the US has troops in Syria. “Because we’re trying to make sure that there’s going to be and remain peace in the Middle East, and Syria is a big part of it,” he said. “The new leader is a strong person, and that’s what you need,” Trump said, referring to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former al-Qaeda commander who took power in Damascus after the ousting of Bashar al-Assad. “It’s been amazing what — what’s taken place in Syria. We got rid of Assad,” Trump said, acknowledging a US role in the regime change that put Sharaa’s group of jihadists, known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in power. The three Americans were killed on Saturday by a member of Syria’s security forces — though the US has claimed in the face of Damascus’ own admissions that it was an ‘ISIS attacker’. “We got rid of other people that were really bad people and that […]