Trump has said that he would deploy American troops back to Iraq to combat ISIS but has argued against deepening US involvement in Syria.
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“We have experience fighting ISIS and I think the whole world has seen as evidence of that the areas that we now hold in Syria”, Mohamed Rasho, spokesman for the political wing of the YPG, the Syrian Kurd fighting force, was quoted as saying.
“It’s definitely meant to send a message that we’re upping the game inside Syria, that we’re absolutely serious about going after ISIL [Daesh] and that we’re not going to be dissuaded by any efforts to prop up Assad”, said an Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Few of those officials, however, suggested that the moves would be enough to break open the stalemated conflict or produce sudden battlefield gains.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said it is “time for the Administration to propose a unified strategy that addresses the intertwined challenges posed by ISIL and President Assad”. The goal, for now, is simply to incrementally reinforce those areas that are working and abandon initiatives that are not.
Obama had hoped a ground force trained by Americans elsewhere in the region would have complemented the strikes in Syria. A USA program to train Syrians was abandoned as a failure, and the new deployment essentially would replace that program.
These aren’t technically combat troops; their mission will be to “advise, assist and enable” Syrian rebels fighting ISIS.
Russia’s air campaign in Syria in support of ally Assad has mainly targeted those insurgents, as Moscow and Tehran seek to prop up the Syrian government.
“Four-and-a-half years of war, we all believe, has been far too long”, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters. There is no ground force that the United States can train quickly.
Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the USA would do more to support moderate Syrian forces fighting IS.
Labor leader Bill Shorten said it would be hard for Australia to decide if it should get involved in ground operations in Syria.
The Obama administration may authorize the new ground operations in both Iraq and Syria as early as this week, according to the Washington Post.
More ambitious and costly measures such as no-fly zones or buffer zones that would require tens of thousands of ground troops to effectively protect civilians were rejected.
The United States announced the deployment of ground troops in Syria during the same week in which plans were made public for the stationing of 4,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops on Russia’s borders, and as provocative U.S. naval operations in the South China Sea raise the threat of a military confrontation with China. “Really, it was an opportunity that fell into our laps”.
One senior US defense official also tried to lower expectations, calling the move an effort “to gauge what’s possible”.
“I’d have to be candid”, Carter said, “[Iraqi Prime Minister] Abadi does not have complete sway over what happens in Iraq”.
A rainbow is seen as residents inspect a site damage from what activists said was an airstrike by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on the main field hospital in the town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, October 29, 2015. But even in Iraq, the line between combat and non-combat troops has been hazy.
Russian Federation said when it began air strikes last month that it would also target the Islamic State militant group, but its planes have hit other rebel groups opposed to Assad, including groups backed by Washington. “That’s precisely the reason the president is choosing to intensify our support for them”.
It could also set up momentum for Obama’s visit to Turkey in November, where he will attend the G-20 summit along with Putin.
“If he took these actions all at once, it could have a greater impact”, she said.
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At the end of his first term, the last of the American troops withdrew from Iraq, and at the end of 2011, Obama touted the fulfillment of a key campaign promise.
