Is Iran preparing to open up an active front against America in eastern Syria? Iran's new buddies in Moscow would sure appreciate that.
America's mission inside Syria had been on autopilot. Is that changing?
Concurrent with bipartisan support for ending the old Congressional authorizations for American intervention in Iraq, a resolution in the House to compel the withdrawal of American troops from Syria failed by a wide margin. America has about 900 in eastern Syria plus contractors in unknown strength.
And special forces aren't included in the number for
operational security, I believe.
America's presence in Syria is really more about resisting Iran, now:
The United States has roughly 900 troops in Syria to fight the Islamic State group, but they also currently face a familiar adversary: Iran.
Most recently, the U.S. government has blamed Iranian-backed groups for several attacks against American service members deployed to Syria, including a March 23 suicide drone attack on a coalition base in Hasakah that killed an American contractor and wounded five U.S. service members.
Attacks in Syria seem to be happening more often: "Three suicide drones attacked a U.S. base in eastern Syria on Friday, wounding two Syrian opposition fighters, the U.S. military said. No Americans were hurt in the attack." Iran is likely behind the attack.
There have in fact been 83 Iranian attacks on American forces in Syria since Biden became president. Sadly there are no statistics available for the four previous years. So my impression lacks data to back it.
I've written that in addition to keeping ISIL down, our forces in Syria
help screen Iraq from renewed invasion from Syria. Iran enabled Sunni jihadi
entry through Syria before and during the Iraq War and during Iraq War 2.0 when
half of ISIL was based in Syria. Would those Iranian attacks simply continue into Iraq without our shield?
So although the looming fight with Iran is most apparent in Syria, Iraq itself is the main objective in the struggle between America and Iran.
Our government should explain our objectives in case the going gets rough. And it might:
Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah have messaged that the Iran-led Axis of Resistance is prepared to continue escalating against American forces in eastern Syria.
U.S. troops in Syria are seeing more Russian fighter jets flying over their positions, the Air Force’s top general in the Middle East said.
Is Russia goading and supporting Iran in Syria to put pressure on America to distract us from helping Ukraine?
If that works for Iran, the Iranians will escalate their fight inside Iraq. But could even that tarnish the Democrats' odd love of mullah-run Iran?
Iran is our main problem in the region. Act like it rather than persisting in treating Iran as a friend we haven't tried hard enough to make.
As an aside, some are saying America's military presence in Syria is illegal because there was no declaration of war. This is incorrect. The legal ways America can fight are complicated and longstanding. And reliance on the Congressional declaration of war route is in one sense obsolete and in another has a lot of consequences that nobody wants absent a new world war.
So let's argue on policy and objectives. There's plenty of room for debate on that ground.
UPDATE: This author says fighting ISIL is a flimsy reason to remain in Syria, and that we should get out.
I mostly agree on the first point, obviously. But I think we have better reasons than that flimsy pretense to remain.
Of course, with the real enemy Iran, we need to actually see mullah-run Iran as our enemy that must be defeated. Given that Democrats oddly love the mullahs, we might just be dangling targets in front of Iran with no intention of getting tough when the going gets tough.
If that's how we're going to roll, I'd have to reluctantly agree with the second point because if we remain we'd get the worst of both worlds. Iran would eventually get another Beirut bombing-style or Mogadishu-like victory and we'd visibly retreat before Iran, raising their prestige and morale.
But avoiding that result doesn't mean I won't worry a lot about the future effects of that retreat.
Some of the author's analysis about the Iraq War creating ISIL is nonsense. ISIL rose from a number of reasons and was just another flavor-of-the-month Sunni jihadi group that existed before 9/11--as the terror attacks on 9/11 and before amply demonstrate.
Like many PhDs, he displays the tendency to ascribe too many foreign actions as a result of American actions or inactions. Enemies have agency. They do.
Still, to stay in Syria the American people and government must know the objective and be willing to fight for that. Can we do that?
UPDATE: Another spin of the "Let's Hope We Kill an American" wheel:
A rocket attack Monday targeted a base in eastern Syria where U.S. troops are based causing no injuries or damage, the U.S. military said.
Also:
On any given day there are at least 900 U.S. forces in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors. U.S. special operations forces also move in and out of the country, but are usually in small teams and are not included in the official count.
My memory on contractor and special forces counts did not fail me.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 continues here.
