According to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the current plan is that all US troops leaving Syria will be redeployed into western Iraq. The troops there will continue to engage in anti-ISIS operations.
How that’s going to work isn’t entirely clear. After all, there aren’t really any ISIS fighters in western Iraq anymore. Though Esper suggested that the US wasn’t ruling out crossing into Syria for some operations, right now there aren’t many ISIS fighters there either.
This will be a move of more than 700 troops into Iraq, which is likely to raise eyebrows in Iraq, as all indications are that the US is at, or over, the troop cap negotiated with the Iraqi government, and this surprise deployment comes amid calls from Iraqi lawmakers to expel the US troops already there.
It’s clear why the US would like to just move the troops to western Iraq, as it’s close, would make for a convenient area to stage back into Syria at any time, and also puts more US ground troops adjacent to neighboring Iran, always a top US military priority. Yet the risk of turning Iraq into a staging ground for US troops into neighboring countries has always been a big problem for Iraqi officials, and that controversy will continue.
The obvious problems with this redeployment shows that the administration probably didn’t do a lot of pre-planning on what would happen with the troops, and that officials fairly quickly decided that keeping the troops in the region, instead of actually withdrawing them, was the priority.
So much for Trump bringing the troops home. He continues to be a con man who does whatever comes into his little head at any given moment. Thankfully, the Russians see right through this BS and the Syrian Army will continue to occupy Syrian oil fields, water, and agricultural lands with their support.
The remarkable apathy from the public will make it virtually impossible for anyone — not just Trump — to withstand the bi-partisan warmongering pressure.
If only there is some sort of public action demanding Trump fulfill his promises to end stupid never ending wars, and name and shame the war pushing addicts, may be he will get the spine.
I do not expect me-too and other self-absorbed identity-searching lost Democrats to be interested. But most very average people are. And negative reaction to Hillary’s attack on Tulsi Gabbard is resonating with many people.
But it seems everybody would rather watch things via internet, and nothing more. What a shame for young people today — unless there is a promise of entertainment, like climate theatrics, no interest. Dull as dishwater.
Pentagon today is still “mulling” keeping troops in Syrian oil fields. It’s not over yet. https://news.yahoo.com/u-troops-cross-iraq-part-083306838.html
Assad shall not have Syrian oil. That has probably been promised to Exxon-Mobile.
Let me guess what’s coming from the trumpsters….yyyyay, see ? troops out of Syria. Then, when they leave Iraq to cause more mayhem in Syria…yyyay, see ? troops out of Iraq !…guess none of heard of the shell game.
“the administration probably didn’t do a lot of pre-planning on what would happen with the troops”
No planning at all. That is clear from the confusion of events. This is the first place they can stick them, moving fast.
It is also the minimum move that can be made with them by the Blob that never wanted to move them at all. Forever War goes on, from just across the line of the border.
That raises an interesting issue. Normally there ought to always be a significant planning bureau in the military establishment whose task is to consider future situations and develop plans to respond to them. These planners are paid by us, the taxpayers. By Jove, what has happened to them? Has our President furloughed them?
I think most were of the opinion that they weren’t coming home.
Was the government of Iraq consulted? Did the government of Iraq approve? Is this allowed under any US-Iraq treaty? If the answers to these questions are no then our government has moved armed persons into Iraq without the approval of its government. What is that named Mr. Trump? It is named invasion. No, not from Mexico. Not by Meso-American “hordes”. By ours. From Syria.
I remember how everyone touted Trump being against the Iraq war(before he was for it via Stern interview)as a reason he was different than those he was running against. And yet three years in there is no mention of rectifying our illegal invasion. To the contrary, Trump acts as though Iraq is our colony that we can use as we please. I know my TDS gets in the way of my opinion of this great non-interventionist but these types of things just keep getting in my way.
Trump is for whatever works for Trump. It’s been like that his entire life.
He’s a symptom of the real disease being used as bread and circus.
It’s what frustrates me about antiwar.com the most.
Shouldn’t we cover the powers that be instead of the decoy ?
Coincidently, trump only drools out anti-Iraq war memes when some neocon criticizes him. The very last thing you will see is him calling for investigations into the lies preceding the war, which he has acknowledged. Why, seems to be pretty obvious now.
Most likely that Trumpsters will invent some rational (troops will come home in Trump’s second term, moving troops is better than nothing, democrats are against, therefore …).
This site has basically two type of readers:
1. Those who base their view on facts and on antiwar/anti-intervention belief.
2. Those who base their view on ego. The second type are the Trumpsters who always tell us they they were always right (I and Raimondo said that and we were right). They always apply confirmation bias and are never confused by facts (filtering in ten percents, filtering out ninety percents).
After all those deadly sanctions, drone wars, military threats, interventions, military spending, all Trump has to do is to spell the brilliant statement (that non of us ever thought about) that wars (but only in the middle east) are stupid, one tweet is sufficient to make an antiwar president. How cheap.
“How cheap.” Yet how lucrative for the few. Mass murder for profit keeps you rich and powerful.
Got that right. As I’ve said, it’s a battle between “Trump Derangement Syndrome” on one side and “Trump Savior Syndrome” on the other – with us rationalists in the middle getting screwed – as usual.
The point is to jack up the number of troops next to Iran, which is the real target and always has been. As for Iraqi officials, they’ll do what they’re told by the US since without US support they’d probably be in internal political trouble.
Sure, the Iraqi military and Iranian-backed militias could expel the existing US troops any time they want – except that would restart the Iraq war and they clearly don’t want that to happen given what happened last time. Iran wouldn’t want that, either, as it would likely be used as an excuse to attack Iran.
The US government couldn’t care less what Iraq thinks about them, even if it restarts the Iraq war. The neocons don’t care how many US soldiers die in Iraq or Syria or Iran as long as they get their way.
And Trump is clueless about all this and just does whatever his advisers tell him – except when he’s having a temper tantrum and balks.
How does Trump manage crisis? He creates another crisis somewhere else.
so guess who is not going home?