“Lifting sanctions on Syria is a positive step — but sanctions aren’t the only holdover policy from the Assad days that the U.S. should revisit,” said Rosemary Kelanic, the director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities, a think tank that advocates for more restrained U.S. foreign policy. “Over 1,000 U.S. troops remain stuck in Syria without a clear mission or timetable to return. They’re a legacy of the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, but that would-be ‘caliphate’ was defeated and lost all its territory over 5 years ago. It’s time for those troops to come home.”
Fear of an ISIS revival has been the long-standing argument for keeping U.S. troops in Syria. Kelanic pointed to the recent history of Afghanistan as an argument against claims that the U.S. needs to have boots on the ground to counter any ISIS resurgence.
“The big argument against the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was that we would see a resurgence of terrorism from al-Qaeda or ISIS. But the U.S hasn’t been targeted by terrorism from Afghanistan,” Kelanic told The Intercept. “The U.S. has detected plots by ISIS-Khorasan, which operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Iran and Russia and warned those countries ahead of time. We’re able to still detect what’s going on with extremely sophisticated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities without having boots on the ground.”
“Having these troops in Syria puts them at risk of retaliation from Iran and others,” said Kelanic. “It’s like we’re giving them hostages to take if they see fit, without there being a particularly compelling reason for these troops to be there.”
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