The Pentagon leadership has made no bones about not being keen on
withdrawing from Syria, and even as they claim to be resigned to doing
so, they continue to issue reports clearly intended to scare the
administration away from the plan.
This new report, the full contents of which will be available on Monday, affirms
that ISIS has lost materially of its its territory in both Iraq and
Syria, but then warns it is conceivable that ISIS might regain some
territory if left totally alone to do so.
The message is intended to be interpreted by US readers as saying the US
needs to keep pressuring ISIS militarily, though in practice it really
just means that any attempts by ISIS to reclaim lost territory need to
be resisted by somebody, which they would with or without a US presence.
With territory estimated at less than five square kilometers inside
Syria, ISIS has for all intents and purposes had to relocate its entire
force into the deserts of Syria and Iraq. Yet the forces in the desert
clearly don’t pose a serious threat to retake anything, or they’d be
trying to retake something as it is. US troops, after all, are not on
the front lines with ISIS forces to begin with, and the groups that are
aren’t going anywhere.
If only Trump had said we were leaving because we had no business being there and that ISIS can be taken care of by the regional players who actually want them gone. As soon as he said they were defeated it left the doors wide open for the obvious.
Not that the response would have been different.
Overall Trump kind of said all of that in classic politician style, trying to speak out of as many sides of his mouth as there were factions to please.
The main sentiment of the deal remains, the U.S. gets out, sooner rather than later.
Again Prez. Trump lacks ballz and confidence, a true weakling.
A good start would be to quit funding ISIS through isIsrael. Then stop funding all their pentagon and CIA “enemies”.
IS was primarily funded through Saudi Arabia and the GCC; Israel whatever its faults makes better investments for itself of U.S. taxpayer money.
Primarily doesn’t mean squat. Israel funds terrorism all over the ME and wants part of Syria along with whatever else it can steal, which is one of it’s many faults including executing innocent children, journalists, and disabled people as psyops and for kicks.
True, but IS is more accurately funded for Israel, not by Israel.
U.S. taxpayer money flows to Israel are more a symptom than the ailment. The old standby of ‘follow the money’ has to account for political power flows and how they happen.
The gentile population that has a stake in Israel has to be accounted for, or weeding will always miss the roots.
Great article that pins blame where it belongs. The Pentagon of all places shouldn’t be advocating for saving a strategic blunder and fixing a failed regime change.
The fear of a Syria-Iraq-Iran pipelinestan (which competes with Russia anyway) or Shia crescent threat to Israel (how again?) or whatever soft power problem Syria presents, is not their purview as a hard war organization.
They can always bomb later in a formal war they are better suited to fight, or bomb somewhere else.
Let me get this straight, the Pentagon is refusing to carry out the orders of the CIC?
Before GW Bush donned the flight suit and landed on the deck of an American aircraft carrier parked right off the coast of sunny California and didn’t declare Mission Accomplished in Iraq, presidents realized that the Commander-in-Chief role is ceremonial in nature and symbolizes the civilian control over the military. The CIC is not an actual part of the chain of command, especially when the person in question has zero experience in the military or military-like orgs.
On the flipside, you should be horrified if the military starts taking marching orders solely from the Chief Executive. That was why Congress was given the responsibility of declaring war.