US Army/Spc. Jensen Guillory
- The US still has 3,500 troops in Iraq and several hundred more in Syria.
- Any benefit the US may get from those deployments is dwarfed by the risks of keeping them there.
- Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow for Defense Priorities and former US Army lieutenant colonel.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
The United States will engage in a "strategic dialogue" with Iraq this month, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last week. The key agenda item, she explained, was the US combat deployment there.
How or whether to extend the operation should not be part of the discussion. Nailing down details of the withdrawal should.
The 3,500 US troops currently in Iraq serve no purpose related to American national security. They don't have a militarily attainable mission which could be recognized and signal the end of the deployment. The only benefactor is the government in Baghdad and even they are ready to show America the exit.
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi told reporters in Iraq he is approaching April's dialogue with Washington as a chance to push for the withdrawal of American troops. He cited what he considered a positive outcome from the June 2020 strategic dialogue with the US in which Iraq "succeeded in reducing the size of the US combat forces in Iraq by 60%."
In this upcoming meeting, al-Kadhimi added, he will seek the complete "redeployment of [US] forces outside of Iraq." The administration, however, appeared interested in cooling such talk.
US Army/Capt. Travis Mueller
At the recent press briefing, Psaki sought to "further clarify that coalition forces are in Iraq solely for the purpose of training and advising Iraqi forces to ensure that ISIS cannot reconstitute." If the troops are not officially engaged in direct combat, some believe, the deployment will be more palatable to the American people.
There is little evidence the US population cares about the nuance, however. Upward of 75% want the troops to return home. Such views are well-founded, as the troops no longer provide even nominal support for US security interests.
The reason troops are in Iraq at all today is because President Barack Obama sent them to help Baghdad fend off the rise of ISIS in the summer of 2014.
When President Donald Trump assumed office, he beefed up the military presence and gave them the mission of helping the Iraqi military (and later Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria) retake the territory ISIS had captured. That mission was completed in Iraq in November 2017 and in Syria in March 2019.
Today ISIS has been driven underground, as is the case with numerous other violent insurgent groups in the Middle East. Though ISIS poses a potential terror threat - as literally scores of other radical groups do - the threat they pose is limited and in any case is not diminished by having a few thousand troops on the ground in either Iraq or Syria.
Lt. Gen. Paul Calvert, commander of the US-led counter-ISIS mission in Iraq and Syria, told Defense One that ISIS's "ability to reemerge is extremely low right now."
What does concern Calvert, however, are the volatile cultural and political conditions in both countries. "It's clear to me and people that I've talked to [in Iraqi government]," Calvert said, "there's a significant amount of concern in terms of the possibilities of an internal Shia civil war." Things in Syria are even worse.
US Army Reserve/Spc. Tarako Braswell
Aside from the ongoing civil war, operating within Syria are Iranian troops fighting alongside Syrian troops, Russian Air Force bombers striking anti-Syrian targets, Russian mercenaries, Shia militias, Kurdish elements Turkey considers terrorists, and Kurdish groups the US considers allies.
American troops have sometimes narrowly avoided armed clashes with Russian combat troops, Syrian troops, and even its NATO-ally Turkey. In somewhat of an understatement, Calvert said the "level of complexity in Syria is immense and is probably one of the most complex environments I have seen in the 33 years that I've been serving."
Whatever incremental security benefit may exist with US troops being deployed in Iraq and Syria, they are dwarfed by the strategic risk we incur every minute we remain on the ground there.
We are in a sea of civil conflict in Syria and in danger of semi-regular rocket attacks in Iraq. Our military presence cannot influence the political outcome in either country.
The best thing Biden can do for the security of the United States and to preserve the lives of our service members from unnecessary risk at the security dialogue with Baghdad is to withdraw our troops, in full, from both Iraq and Syria as soon as possible.
Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow for Defense Priorities and a former lieutenant colonel in the US Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of "The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America." Follow him @DanielLDavis1.
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