America is drawing down troops in Iraq after the defeat of ISIL, according to Iraq:
"The American forces have begun reducing their numbers as victory has been achieved over Daesh," the [Iraqi government] spokesman told Reuters. "Coordination continues, to maintain (U.S.) assistance to the Iraqi forces in accordance with their requirements."
I heard on television news that we confirm that we will leave 4,000 in Iraq.
We peaked at 5,500+ to support the Iraqi offensive in Iraq War 2.0.
Our NATO allies may do more:
The United States is renewing pressure on its European NATO allies to establish a long-term train-and-advise mission in Iraq, diplomats said, reviving a divisive issue for an alliance wary after a decade in Afghanistan.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis sent a letter to NATO headquarters in January calling for a formal NATO mission to Iraq with a semi-permanent or permanent command to train Iraqi forces, according to five senior NATO diplomats.
We'll see. Let's hope the lesson of leaving after the Iraq War and seeing the situation nearly unravel will lead NATO to organize Europeans to defend the gains of Iraq War 2.0.
Our small Iraq War 2.0 force was clearly enough to train Iraqis and support the Iraqi offensive. Fewer are needed for those missions when ISIL doesn't hold territory.
I hope that we keep enough troops to support the Iraqis in hunting down the remnants of ISIL so they don't rebuild the way they did after 2011 when Iraq clearly needed our help to finish off al Qaeda. Had we been there from 2012-2014 we would have had the opportunity to stem the rot in the Iraqi army that led to its collapse in the north in 2014, too.
Before we left in 2011 I had argued for keeping 25,000 troops in order to have a core of three combat brigades to deter Iran and to have air power and other supporting forces both to sustain and support American combat units and to train and advise Iraqis.
I also believed this level of commitment would also restrain any Iraqi faction from believing it could used armed might to break any political deadlock; thus helping to entrench democratic processes. If civilian advisors could promote rule of law in Iraq, we might finally break the mullah or monarch (including non-royal strongmen) choice of governance that has wrecked development in the Middle East since World War II.
My number was based on the simplistic math of having half the 50,000 and 6 "training" brigades we had post-surge to the 2011 withdrawal.
Obviously no combat units will be deployed in Iraq post-caliphate. Even if our contingent will be enough to train and support the fight against a reduced ISIL, will our small contingent be enough to deter Iran now when a seemingly similar number offered by the Obama administration was judged too low by the Iraqis to deter in 2011?
We accomplished a mission in Iraq--not all missions.
