According to reports from Iraq , the United States has agreed to the broad outlines of a plan to withdraw all but a small number of American troops from the country in two phases over the next two years — 10 years after Operation Inherent Resolve was established to vanquish the terrorist group ISIS in Iraq and Syria .
The agreement has prompted warnings from lawmakers and national security experts that the move sends the wrong signal to Iraq and could jeopardize operations against ISIS across the border in Syria.
“It gives hope to Tehran that it is succeeding in its long-term goal of ejecting the United States from the region through its proxy militias. Nothing could be less helpful — or more dangerous to our service members who are already in harm’s way,” wrote retired Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the former top U.S. commander for the Middle East, in a New York Times opinion essay in February.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been “applying enormous political pressure on Iraq to expel U.S. coalition forces,” added House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL). “He's financed, trained, and equipped terrorist militias that have carried out over 175 attacks on U.S. troops in the region, including the January attack at Tower 22 that took the lives of three American soldiers.”
“While the details of the future U.S. military posture in Iraq remain murky, the consequences of a premature withdrawal are clear,” write Cameron McMillan and Bradley Bowman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “A premature U.S. departure from Iraq that ignores the advice of military leaders and conditions on the ground risks repeating the mistakes of past withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan and catalyzing an ISIS resurgence.”
But the Pentagon, which has been pushing to extend the troop presence, says the reality is that Iraq is a sovereign nation, and unless the U.S. wants to be occupiers instead of allies, it has little choice but to leave if shown the door.
It all has echoes of a past blunder.
A little history:
When former President Barack Obama withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011, he ended up having to send them back three years later to deal with the rise of the terrorist group ISIS, which over just a few months in 2014 seized large parts of Iraq and Syria and brutalized the populace with horrific torture and murders, including beheadings posted on the internet.
Obama was widely blamed for settling the conditions that allowed the ISIS caliphate to metastasize with a premature withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq before the security of the country had been secured.
The Obama administration argued at the time that the U.S. was bound by a deal made by Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, in 2008, when after extensive negotiations with Iraqi leaders, Bush agreed to remove all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.
Then, as is the case now, U.S. troops were in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government, and then, as now, Iraqi leaders seeking better relations with neighboring Iran wanted the American forces to leave.
Obama did try to negotiate an agreement that would have left 10,000 U.S. troops in place, but talks broke down over a new status of forces agreement needed to protect the American military from any Iraqi form of justice.
Critics, including some of his top commanders, believed Obama’s effort was half-hearted because his administration preferred to declare victory and bring the troops home.
“The intent seemed to be to simply get out, without consideration for what might happen in the vacuum that was sure to ensue,” McKenzie, former commander of U.S. Central Command, wrote in his memoir, The Melting Point.
“The abrupt removal of U.S. advisors, enablers, and other support mechanisms exposed the complete inability of the Iraqi army to stand alone, and it led directly to the terrors of the following years.”
It took three years for U.S.-supported Iraqi and Syrian partner forces, in a military campaign crafted by the Obama Pentagon and completed under Trump, for ISIS to be defeated.
Now, 10 years later, history is repeating itself.
In a nod to Iraq’s internal politics, President Joe Biden already ended the U.S. combat mission in Iraq in 2021, announcing the 2,500 U.S. troops remaining would be limited to training and advising Iraq in the counter-ISIS effort.
But the current Iraqi government, under heavy pressure from Iranian-sponsored Shiite groups opposed to any U.S. troop presence, is saying it’s now time for those last 2,500 to go, even as ISIS has become resurgent.
“The justifications are no longer there,” Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al Sudani told Bloomberg TV in an interview in Baghdad on Sept. 17. “There is no need for a coalition. We have moved on from wars to stability. ISIS is not really representing a challenge.”
In July 2021 in a nod to Iraq’s internal politics, Biden announced the transition of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq to an advisory and training mission, with 2,500 U.S. troops remaining to help Iraq continue the fight against ISIS.
The U.S. forces may be only “advising,” but they play an outsize role in the planning and execution of counter-ISIS missions — as evidenced by a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid in Iraq's western Anbar province in late August, which killed 14 ISIS fighters, including a senior commander, said by CENTCOM to be “responsible for all operations in Iraq.”
For more than a year, the Pentagon has been in negotiations to come up with a way to accede gradually to Iraq’s withdrawal demands while not undercutting the mission to ensure “the enduring defeat of ISIS.”
“We're having those discussions about what the transition looks like, recognizing that ISIS remains a persistent threat,” Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in mid-September. “We'll continue to stay focused on working with our Iraqi partners to ensure regional security and stability.”
In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, the current commander of CENTCOM said threats from his area of responsibility, which includes Iraq, have risen dramatically since the Hamas terrorist attack of Oct. 7.
“Iran exploited what they saw as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the Middle East to their advantage,” Gen. Michael Kurilla testified in March. “In the past six months, we have seen every proxy in the Iranian threat network operationalized, in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, and Yemen.”
“Violent extremist organizations have also seized on this opportunity,” Kurilla said. “ISIS surged their attacks in Iraq and Syria earlier this year.”
“We're going after every day, every night, about 1,500 [ISIS] inside of Syria and about 1,000 inside of Iraq,” he noted. “I worry about those that are inside Syria. And the last category is the next potential generation of ISIS.”
“Would you recommend to the president that we withdraw our troops from Iraq?” asked Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA).
“I would not,” Kurilla replied, “until the conditions are met that Iraq can handle that fight by themselves.”
The agreement the Pentagon is finalizing with Iraq is aimed at buying time. The U.S. hoped to stave off the exit for at least three years, but Iraq insisted on two.
“A number of coalition partners, who've been there for a decade, are looking to move on,” a senior administration official told reporters at the Pentagon. “But of course, the United States is the core, and we very much intend to continue to prosecute this mission against ISIS over the coming years.”
“We will be transitioning away from the coalition military mission in Iraq more to enduring bilateral security partnerships,” the official said, insisting that the U.S. is still working out “what that might look like” and adding, “We haven't reached any final conclusions.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
A full U.S. withdrawal would not only take pressure off ISIS in Iraq but also in Syria, argues McKenzie, the former top commander.
“In the end, American troops are in Syria and Iraq to prevent ISIS from being able to attack our homeland. By leaving, we could give them the time and space to re-establish a caliphate, increasing our risk at home,” McKenzie wrote. “Our rapid withdrawal would be seen as yet another example of American weakness that adversaries would not hesitate to exploit.”
Local News
