As of: January 31, 2024, 11:42 a.m
Comments
Press
Split
The military operation in the Middle East has been completed for US troops, but the withdrawal of soldiers could still continue.
Washington DC - For US troops under fire from Iran-linked groups in Iraq and Syria, the military mission is largely complete, experts say.
Whether and when to withdraw them is more complicated - a question that has taken on greater urgency after three US soldiers were killed in a drone strike in Jordan on Sunday.
The roughly 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria are described by U.S. officials as part of an operation to stop the Islamic State from regaining a foothold in the region.
But with the jihadist group largely weakened, American soldiers are now being targeted by other opponents who say attacks will continue as long as Washington supports Israel's war in Gaza.
American soldiers from the US-led Joint Task Force (CJTF-OIR) on a patrol near the Syrian city of Rojava (symbolic image).
© snapshot/Imago
US soldiers are increasingly being targeted in Iraq and Syria
“What has happened in the last few weeks has exposed their vulnerability,” said Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group.
“I hope this raises questions about why they are vulnerable and how they can make their presence less burdensome for everyone else who works with them.”
According to the Congressional Research Service, which focuses on Jordanian security and the Islamic State, the United States had nearly 3,000 troops in Jordan as of 2023.
Officials said Monday that the drone that approached Tower 22, a base in the northeast of the country, was mistaken for a returning American aircraft.
Across the Middle East, U.S. troops have been attacked more than 160 times by Iran-aligned fighters since October.
The US presence in Syria and Iraq dates back to 2014, when a global coalition joined forces with local forces to drive Islamic State fighters from an area the size of Britain.
Jordan's Tower 22, a U.S. outpost on the border between the three countries, houses about 350 U.S. engineering, aviation, logistics and security personnel, mostly supporting troops in Syria.
US troops have to contend with a changed environment in Iraq
Nearly a decade after the first deployment of U.S. soldiers and five years after ISIS was declared defeated, Joe Biden is the third president to lead the mission.
But the environment in which this takes place has changed radically.
The jihadist group now resembles a low-level insurgency, particularly in Syria, rather than a government force.
My news
Explosive report from the USA: Americans are struggling with German Leopard 2 tanks
1 hour ago
Federal states reach agreement: payment cards for asylum seekers should be introduced nationwide read
“Lost interest in the topic”: Aiwanger is criticized after outrage over left-wing extremism
Risk “very high”: Austria warns of attack from Russiaread
Russian Ilyushin intercepted off Rügen – Putin's military plane has special equipment
“The enemy is gathering troops”: According to Ukraine soldiers, Putin is preparing a major attack read
ISIS no longer holds territory in Iraq.
The presence of U.S. troops, 20 years after a U.S.-led invasion of the country sparked a bloody civil war, is increasingly controversial among Iraqis.
Although the US military continues to have a mandate to advise Iraqi forces, the troops mostly remain in their bases.
U.S. retaliatory strikes against Iran-linked targets in Iraq, including the 2020 assassination of Tehran's most influential general, Qasem Soleimani, have increased domestic pressure to push America out of the country.
Iran's influence in the region has grown while Washington's influence has waned.
The two camps have coexisted unequally for years.
The Iranian-backed armed groups gained wealth and power as they waged their own battles against ISIS, and some were later integrated into Iraqi forces.
Tensions between the militias and U.S. troops heightened in 2018 after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from a landmark nuclear deal that had led to a diplomatic opening with Tehran.
Read The Washington Post for free for four weeks
Your quality ticket from washingtonpost.com: Get exclusive research and 200+ stories free for four weeks.
Already 20 years in the Middle East – Are there permanent military operations for the USA?
The slow change in American military operations in Iraq is due in part to "a certain unease and a cultural and political version of risk that is comfortable for both the Iraqis and us," said Jonathan Lord, director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
“But this is how you end up with 20-year missions in foreign countries that ultimately fail to evolve with the conditions, and then policies that call for the end of the mission even when there are no permanent, sustainable solutions,” he said.
When the United States announced an official end to combat operations in Iraq in 2021, Western and Iraqi officials characterized the move as a matter of political optics rather than a change in realities on the ground.
Last week, the Biden administration announced it would resume talks with Iraqi partners about the future of U.S. troops in Iraq, marking the most serious attempt of his presidency to rethink the American military presence in the region.
U.S. officials sought to separate the talks with Iraq from the turmoil in the Middle East, pointing out that they grew out of diplomatic efforts dating back several years.
It is “not a time-limited event,” a senior U.S. military official told reporters last week, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive discussions.
“We will manage this process as part of our joint dialogue.”
But ongoing attacks on US troops and retaliatory measures by the American military, particularly in Iraq, could also throw the calculation into disarray.
Pressure is increasing in the USA and Iraq: control zones should provide relief
"As the pace and intensity of these attacks increase, it will be difficult to say, 'Okay, let's do this in a thoughtful way,' because there will be more pressure, both in the US and in Iraq," said a senior congressional aide briefed on the ongoing talks.
He spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate negotiations.
America's military footprint in Syria may be smaller, but the politics of disengagement are even more complex.
After a twelve-year civil war, the country is divided into different zones of control: the US works with a Kurdish-led force, the Syrian Democratic Forces, in the northeast of the country;
the northwest is administered by a Turkish-backed authority;
and President Bashar al-Assad's government, along with Russian and Iranian allies, controls much of the rest of the country, including part of the central Syrian desert where ISIS maintains a foothold.
As ISIS was pushed back, areas previously held by the group were claimed by other warring parties hoping to expand their influence and advance their goals.
US officials believe that Iran's strategic goal is to establish an east-west land corridor connecting it with armed allies in Iraq and Lebanon, and that the US presence in Tanf - a US garrison on the Syrian border with Iraq – which stands in the way.
US mission in Syria: The solution does not lie solely in military means
The senior U.S. military official also noted the vulnerability of prisons holding thousands of Islamic State prisoners and their family members in northeastern Syria.
“Daesh could become active overnight,” said the official, who used the Arabic term for ISIS.
“Two thousand prisoners could escape and become part of an operational force, and that is Daesh’s operational goal at the moment.”
That fear was backed up by an analysis by the Conflict Armament Research Group published on Monday of weapons seized following attacks by militants in the northeast of the country.
The analysis concludes that the group may be more resilient than previously thought.
“ISIS still maintains a centralized, coordinated acquisition and distribution network in northeastern Syria, which is surprising given the joint efforts of local security forces and the American presence, as well as ongoing surveillance and observation of suspected ISIS members,” said Devin Morrow, head of the ISIS Conflict Armament Research's regional operations and lead author of the report.
The U.S. mission in Syria remains narrowly focused on counterterrorism, officials and experts say — a policy marked by past failures.
The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011, when Biden was vice president, coupled with ineffective local government, left a vacuum in which ISIS eventually thrived.
“Biden took the position at the time that we should keep small teams there to keep al-Qaeda in Iraq in check,” said Aaron Stein, author of the book “The US War Against ISIS,” which describes the evolution of that mission.
“He believed that the withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 was a huge mistake in the way it was carried out, and that has driven the mission ever since,” Stein said.
But the question of how to get out of Iraq cannot be answered by military means alone, experts say and officials acknowledge.
“People say that you can't completely eradicate them and that you can't really define an end goal for the anti-ISIS mission.
This may all be true,” said Khalifa of the International Crisis Group.
"But it's also political [...] the Turks have to be on board, the SDF have to be on board, the Russians and the regime have to be on board." "All of this is difficult, but not impossible," she said.
“It's just very difficult because the complicated tasks require investments and a lot of things that the U.S. doesn't do.”
To the authors
Missy Ryan
writes about diplomacy, national security and the State Department for The Washington Post.
She joined the Post in 2014 to write about the Pentagon and military issues.
She has reported from Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Chile.
Louisa Loveluck
is the head of the Baghdad office.
She previously worked for the Post in Beirut and worked as a Cairo correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on January 31, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.