“We have come a long way since the coalition answered the call for help,” Maj. Gen. John W. Brennan Jr., the commander of the anti-Islamic State task force in Iraq, said in a statement on Dec. 9. “In this new phase, our transformative partnership with Iraq symbolizes the need for constant vigilance.”

What is this “new phase” the general is talking about?

Is the counter-ISIS mission finally over? Are U.S. troops, having wiped out ISIS’s territorial caliphate, finally packing up their gear and withdrawing from Iraq. Withdrawing, that is, more than six years after the first airstrikes against the terrorist group?