By Bill Van Auken

October 10, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - Amid the storm of denunciations—extending from right-wing Republicans to the Democratic Party, the New York Times and the pseudo-left Jacobin magazine—of his decision to pull US troops out of Syria, President Donald Trump issued an extraordinary tweet on Wednesday in defense of his policy:

“The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE ... IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! We went to war under a false & now disproven premise, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.”

Trump’s Twitter account has dominated the US news cycle ever since he took office. Tweets have introduced fascistic new policies on immigration, announced the frequent firings of White House personnel and cabinet members and signaled shifts in US foreign policy.

Last month, amid the mounting of an impeachment inquiry, which the Democratic leadership in Congress has focused exclusively on “national security” concerns stemming from Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the US president set a new personal record, tweeting 800 times.

Yet the corporate media has chosen to ignore Trump’s tweet on the protracted US military intervention in the Middle East.

From the standpoint of the bitter internecine struggle unfolding within the US capitalist state, the tweet expresses the sharp divisions over US global strategy. While those around Trump want to focus entirely on preparation for confrontation with China, layers within the political establishment and the military and intelligence apparatus see the continuation of the US intervention to assert its hegemony over the Middle East and countering Russia as critical for American imperialism’s drive to impose its dominance over the Eurasian landmass.

But aside from these disputes over geo-strategic policy, the admission by a sitting US president that Washington launched a war under a “false” and “disproven” premise that ended up killing “millions” has direct political implications, whatever Trump’s intentions.

It amounts to an official admission from the US government that successive US administrations are responsible for war crimes resulting in mass murder.