Donald Trump was mostly correct in his recent social media post on Syria, in which he argued in block capitals: “This is not our fight. Let it play out.” The United States “should have nothing to do with” Syria’s mess, at least in a military sense. Leaving US forces there, whether or not Bashar al-Assad’s fall ends the civil war, is pointless and dangerous.

But the question remains whether the President-elect, this time around, will enact foreign policies consistent with his sensible rhetoric. His record on Syria, after all, is typically unpredictable. As president, he famously announced in 2018 that he was pulling out troops.

But he backtracked after howls of outrage, including from his own defence secretary, who resigned. Trump then gave in to arguments from other hawkish subordinates, including national security advisor John Bolton, that he should keep forces there to protect Syria’s oil fields and evict Iranian forces. He claimed to be a peacemaker in his campaign this year but ignored the unauthorised US war there. Even in his recent post, he blamed Syria’s trouble on Barack Obama being insufficiently committed to making war there — not bombing over Syria’s chemical weapons use, as Trump later did.

The reason Trump gave six years ago for wanting out of Syria was simple and correct: the US had achieved its mission to destroy the Islamic State’s “caliphate”. Its remnants were scattered and no longer a threat to America, if they ever were. The Kurds, the Assad government, Iranian-backed militias, and Russia were lining up to attack what little of Isis was left. The idea that the US had to be at the front of the queue never made sense, and American forces did not require local bases when they struck directly at terrorists there. Having bases in such places, while it can offer slight logistical convenience, arguably generates more terrorism through blowback. It certainly gives local extremists something American to shoot at.

Nor did Trump buy the additional reason typically given for leaving US forces in Syria, which was to protect the Kurds, primarily from Turkey. He was perhaps too callous about the Kurds’ fate, but he was right that the United States, having defended the Kurds against Isis, did not have to repay some debt by backing their autonomy and protecting them in perpetuity. Geography says the Kurds will have to have find accommodation with the new Syrian government and Turkey sooner or later; the United States cannot move them to safety.

Trump’s rejection of these arguments when he was last president probably means he won’t accept them this time, much as people will try to convince him. And the argument that the US should keep its small force posture in Syria to maintain order there — a kind of nation-building lite concept — almost certainly will not fly with the new administration.

Still, Trump could elect to keep troops in Syria. Even though there isn’t much oil in Syria and the revenues of its sale do not go to Americans, the President-elect still seems to believe in the virtue of “keeping” it, as he puts it, by having US troops nearby.

What’s more, even though Iranian forces have left, Trump might be tempted to keep American troops nearby to threaten them. After all, he now criticises the withdrawal from Afghanistan his last administration negotiated, arguing that America should have kept troops at Bagram Air Base to menace China.

Finally, with the Syrian government likely to be dominated by US-designated terrorists from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Trump, or at least some of his more hawkish advisors, may want to keep forces there to threaten or even attack. Likewise, if the new government cannot consolidate power, as is likely, militias of other extremists — including Isis — may grow more threatening, generating pressure for American attacks and maintaining bases.

Trump’s last run as president suggests that his occasionally dovish instincts struggle for permanence in his mind. Advocates of getting out of Syria need to keep reminding his administration, and everyone else who will listen, that whatever one thinks of Syria’s government or its neighbours, trying to manage its problems with US military forces is a fool’s errand. Going after terrorists does not require occupying chunks of countries they operate in, and doing that tends to generate all manner of additional trouble. We should not miss another chance to get out.