U.S. Forces Should Have Left Iraq and Syria Years Ago

It is not necessary to keep troops in these countries to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States.

There’s a lot that could be said about Gen. McKenzie’s op-ed defending a continued U.S. military presence in Syria and Iraq, but these claims are clearly untrue:

In the end, American troops are in Syria and Iraq to prevent ISIS from being able to attack our homeland. By leaving, we could give them the time and space to re-establish a caliphate, increasing our risk at home.

It is not necessary to keep troops in these countries to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States. This was the fundamental error that the U.S. made for decades after 9/11, and it was this error that helped needlessly keep the U.S. at war in Afghanistan for decades. More important, the troops currently in Syria and Iraq aren’t really there to protect the U.S. against ISIS. They are there for a confused set of reasons, most of which have to do with opposing Iranian influence.

In practice, U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria are there to serve as targets for local militias. That’s a bad reason to put Americans in harm’s way, and there is no compelling reason to keep putting them at risk. U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria should have come home long ago, and every day that they stay they are being put in danger for no good reason. The Iraqi government no longer wants our troops there, and the Syrian government never wanted them in their country, and the U.S. shouldn’t try to stay where it isn’t wanted.

The “fight them over there” line is such tired propaganda that I don’t know where to start. ISIS didn’t have the ability to launch attacks against the U.S. when it was at the height of its power, and whatever remnants might still exist pose even less of a threat. The risk of attack from this group is practically non-existent, but any risk that might exist could be much more easily and cheaply managed through intelligence and law enforcement. As for the danger of a reestablished caliphate, ISIS has lots of local enemies that are more than capable of doing the job of keeping any remnants of the group from regaining a foothold.

McKenzie also falls back on the usual fearmongering about withdrawal that we always hear every time it is debated:

Our rapid withdrawal would be seen as yet another example of American weakness that adversaries would not hesitate to exploit.

There is nothing weaker and more foolish than continuing bad policies because of a fear of appearing weak. It is always possible that adversaries might take advantage of a U.S. withdrawal, but when the U.S. has nothing important at stake and Americans are getting killed and injured for no good reason withdrawal is clearly the smarter option. Putting U.S. troops where they can be easily targeted by local militias is a gift to hostile forces that would otherwise have no way to strike so easily at Americans.

McKenzie does allow that “staying is not a good choice, either, unless we can end the attacks on our troops.” It seems fairly clear that the U.S. can’t end these attacks, or at least it can’t end them through the use of force, so keeping these troops in place doesn’t make sense. The longer they stay in these countries, it is more likely that there will be more American fatalities and there will be greater risk of further escalation. If we are really basing policy on “a cleareyed determination about what is best for the United States,” the case for getting out of Iraq and Syria is overwhelming.