In a major policy shift, the Obama administration is now open to having American troops take part in direct combat missions against the Islamic State, or ISIS, which could lead to the deaths of more soldiers in Iraq and Syria and could also pose political risks for the White House.
Advertisement
The debate over the proposed steps, which would for the first time position a limited number of Special Operations forces on the ground in Syria and put USA advisers closer to the firefights in Iraq, comes as Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter presses the military to deliver new options for greater military involvement in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
Carter’s comments have been interpreted by a few critics as an acknowledgement of little recent progress in defeating the militant group.
Still, he said the overall mission of US forces in Iraq is to enable by “equipping, training, advising, and assisting” capable and motivated local forces.
America is preparing to boost its Special Forces presence in Syria to help warplanes identify high value jihadist targets.
“If it had operational or strategic impact and we could reinforce success, that would be the basic framework within which I’d make a recommendation for additional forces to be co-located with Iraqi units”, Dunford said, without elaborating. Carter said he intends to realize this goal through train-and-equip programs for Syrian rebels and Kurdish groups, as well as increased airstrikes, according to The Hill.
Extra raids and a focus on Raqqa are two components of an anti-IS strategy Carter described as being centered on the “three Rs” – raids, Raqqa and Ramadi.
“Are we going to protect them from being barrel bombed by Bashar Assad and protected from Russian Federation?”
Obama’s administration made a decision to pull out USA troops from Iraq in 2011, and the administration has been against deploying ground troops to wars in the Middle East ever since.
He also said the USA would support Jordan and intensify airstrikes on IS targets in Syria.
An official in the region told Reuters that Iran had been invited to the Vienna talks by the us and Russian Federation, and Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian would attend, while the presence of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was still under discussion.
But Carter and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford faced sustained critical questioning from Graham and committee chairman John McCain, also a Republican, during Tuesday’s session. There are no U.S. troops in Syria.
Allen said the U.S. military recently began asking its European allies to join it at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey where the USA is being allowed to launch United States fighter aircraft and surveillance missions into Syria. “I promise you they have”.
Advertisement
“If anyone thought that there our pilots dropping bombs both in Iraq and Syria for the a year ago are not in harm’s way, they’re not paying attention”, he said. Iran’s supreme leader said this month that future negotiation with the United States is “forbidden”, despite the nuclear agreement, and it is not clear whether Tehran will attend.
