For a war which President Obama promised would involve “no boots on the ground,” the ISIS war in Iraq has involved a substantial deployment of ground troops, some 6,000 by most reckonings. Even as officials present ISIS as nearly defeated in Iraq, the US military presence looks to be more or less permanent.
That was the message from Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who insisted that ISIS was heading for “lasting defeat,” but that the US and the rest of its coalition need to keep their troops engaged militarily in Iraq even after this, presenting this as a “sustained” operation.
Carter’s talk of an “enduring presence” in Iraq appears to be in keeping with a lot of officials in the Obama Administration, though with just a month left in office the decision on US troop levels “post-ISIS” will be left to President-elect Donald Trump.
Since Carter will be gone either way before the decision is to be made, the talk of an enduring presence is likely meant to present his, and the administration’s legacy in the war as being one on the verge of victory and with an eye toward a permanent US presence, allowing them to spin the next disaster that comes to US military policy in Iraq someone else’s fault.
Politicking over whose fault each Iraq failure is has become increasingly important in the US, with many officials blaming the current ISIS war on the lack of a permanent military presence after the last US occupation of Iraq, and each party insisting the other is ultimately to blame for that.
Can’t wait for this clown to go away.
So the neocon regime change paradigm now includes permanent occupation. This is getting more and more expensive.
Good for everyone. the Empire and ISIS.
Enduring presence would run smack into the fact that there are quite a number of people in Iraq, some of them very heavily armed, who don’t want any such thing. They said so once, and while ISIS has provided a reason to temporary distraction, they will have a say about it once ISIS is driven out.
Even if the anti-American factions don’t start shooting at Americans, how does Carter propose to extract the extraterritoriality necessary for an American presence from an Iraqi governing structure that can’t possibly agree to such a thing?
Carter doesn’t seem to think Iraqis have any say in the matter. In fact, they do.
Very true. Iraq is a UN member. If we stay militarily against the will of the government of Iraq then all other UN members are obliged to come to its defense.
Will the Iraqis ever get their country free of this poisonous ‘friend’?
They are in Europe too.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-05/make-no-mistake-russia-remains-only-target-country-natos-nuclear-weapons
Yes, but in every case regulated by a Status Of Armed Forces Agreement which gives the host country the right to pull out at any time.
Ash Carter belongs in the long lines awaiting their position on the guillotine.
The only fact that counts is that the 2008 SOFA-Iraq agreement signed by President Bush firmly established the end of the US-Iraq war and confirmed Iraq as an independent sovereign state. Independent sovereign states still control the permanent presence of foreign armed forces on their territory. That fundamental fact forced the withdrawal of all US armed forces from Iraq by President Obama because the independent sovereign state of Iraq said no to US armed forces remaining in Iraq when SOFA-Iraq 2008 ran out. Neither President Obama nor President Trump is in any control of what the people, hence the government of Iraq will accept after “ISIL is defeated”.
Does anyone doubt that out forces will have to leave Germany if its government says: get out now?
This ridiculously Ditzy article totally ignores that Iraq will have the deciding say in this matter.
There are still powerful forces in Iraq who want the soldiers of the unbelievers out.