When President Trump first announced he’d pull U.S. troops from Syria in December, he said it was because ISIS had been defeated. Although that wasn’t true then, as of this weekend ISIS has been driven from its last stronghold. But even though there are plenty of reasons to celebrate, this victory must not be the green light for U.S. troops to simply pack up and head home.
First, as U.S. generals have warned, ISIS remains a threat and has continued to carry out attacks even in territory it has lost. Just because the militants have been rooted out of their final village doesn’t meant individual operatives in the Middle East and around the world will not continue to launch deadly attacks and proliferate their hateful ideology. As Lt. Gen. Paul LaCamera put it, “The end of the so-called physical caliphate is a historic military accomplishment that brought together the largest Coalition in history, but the fight against Daesh and violent extremism is far from over.”
Moreover, simply dropping U.S. involvement would throw our Kurdish allies, who have led the fight against ISIS, under the proverbial bus. Indeed, Turkish President Recep Erdogan has made clear he’s just waiting for the U.S. to get out of the way so he can attack the Kurds.
If the U.S. abandons Kurdish forces, without whom the victory against ISIS would likely not have been possible, Washington would not only make clear that the U.S. views its allies as expendable but that it places the interests of authoritarian states over the fighters who have given their lives alongside U.S. soldiers.
That’s not to say Washington should leave troops in Syria indefinitely, but that a premature departure purely to satisfy a tweeted promise would poorly serve U.S. interests. For now, even as the U.S. and its allies cheer a hard-earned victory against ISIS, troops must stay.
