WASHINGTON – In his tell-all expose, former United States national security adviser John Bolton suggests he played a central role in convincing President Donald Trump to keep a remote Special Forces outpost in Syria’s eastern desert after the president unexpectedly ordered all US troops out of the country in December 2018.

According to Bolton’s new book, during a meeting with Trump at Iraq’s al-Asad air base on Dec. 26, 2018, the former national security adviser prompted Lt. Gen. Paul LaCamera, then-commander of the US-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS), to voice support for keeping al-Tanf garrison.

“LaCamera, to his credit, recovered quickly and said we should hold on to [al-]Tanf,” Bolton writes. “Trump responded, ‘Okay, and we’ll decide the schedule on that later.’”

A week earlier, and without warning, Trump had tweeted that all US troops would imminently come home from Syria, where they were fighting IS and occupying key territory to help Washington shape the political outcome of the war. Trump’s tweet caught allies, adversaries and the top levels of his own administration by surprise, sending senior American officials scrambling to find ways to slow down the withdrawal.