The return of US ground troops to the Anbar Province, the site of some of the bloodiest battles during the last US occupation of Iraq, threatens to bring those US troops directly into contact with ISIS.
Indeed, though the Pentagon downplays the risk of any incidents, saying the troops will remain at “fixed sites” inside Anbar, such an incident may be inevitable, with ISIS controlling more than 80 percent of Anbar, and doubtless keen to inflict US military casualties.
The very sites the Pentagon is current considering are a series of bases as yet untaken by ISIS, and in the past ISIS has shown remarkable effectiveness in moving against such bases with both infiltration and bombing attacks, inflicting large Iraqi military casualties.
At times, those bases have found themselves surrounded by ISIS forces as well, which control most if not all of the highways in Anbar, and are able to keep the bases out of supply for long periods of time, softening them up for attack.
Though the US will doubtless be more aggressive in avoiding letting their troops fall out of supply, this only underscores the risk that putting US ground troops in Anbar means an inevitable clash.
If the roads are controlled by ISIS and their affiliates, driving a helicopter resupply mission is going to get very, very dangerous.
In both Syria and Anbar, the plan is to get the opposition — Assad in Syria and ISIS in Anbar — to fire on US forces. Then the war mongers can cover their backsides and say "We've been attacked!", declare it justified, and unleash the war they want. Gulf of Tonkin, "incubator babies", Iraq's WMDs, the false flag "Sarin attack" on Ghouta; same old same old. Essentially, US forces are the "bait".
What I find interesting is that Assad sees the fix he is in — the US bombing ISIS in Syria but looking for a means to transition to attacking Assad — and has asked the Russians for the promised S-300 air defense systems. Apparently Assad has calculated that the threat of substantial numbers of US aircraft being shot down will deter such an attack. Now Putin has to decide whether or how he wants to fulfill the promise to defend Syria that he made when he convinced Assad to give up his chemical weapons which were his strategic deterrent against attack by Israel or the US.
Complicated and nasty business.