The Americans are in Syria at the invitation of, well, ourselves.
Leave it to the WSJ to make a moral equivalence between the presence of these two countries in Syria.
Four years ago:\
“Last week, the headquarters of a U.S. proxy in Syria—the Syrian Democratic Forces—and their American advisers came under attack by a large Syrian regime force 8 kilometers east of the agreed-upon Euphrates River de-confliction line near Deir al-Zour.
In “self-defense,” the U.S. launched a large-scale artillery and air assault to repel the attackers. Using F-15s, F-22s, AC-130 gunships, Apache helicopters, MQ-9 unmanned drones, and artillery, U.S. forces killed an estimated 100 attackers, according to some Russian media reports, and destroyed numerous tanks and artillery pieces. Among the reported fatalities, according to a Pentagon official, were Syrian Arab Army soldiers enlisted in the “ISIS Hunters” unit, as well as Russian mercenaries working for Wagner, a private military company under the command-and-control of the Russian Ministry of Defense that has been tasked with re-taking oilfields from ISIS.
Initially, Moscow denied any connection. “The reasons for the incident were reconnaissance and search activities by Syrian militia not coordinating with the command of the Russian operations group,” Interfax cited the Russian defense ministry as saying.
But much like the Kremlin’s denial of Russian army soldiers or special operators being deployed in Ukraine, this narrative is rapidly eroding against a tide of social media and even pro-Kremlin press claims naming the names of the slain mercenaries and giving details of their funerals in St. Petersburg.