Even though ISIS was defeated in 2019, the Biden administration has committed to maintaining U.S. forces in Syria to “counter ISIS” and “support local partners on the ground.” But as Defense Priorities’ Daniel Depretis noted, the U.S. does not need endless ground deployments to conduct counterterrorism to prevent a resurgence of ISIS.
U.S. interests in the Middle East are quite limited and include defending against anti-U.S. terrorist threats, preventing long-term disruptions to the flow of oil in the international market, and ensuring that no singular power can dominate the region. None of these objectives are advanced by American troops in Syria. Doubling down on failed interventionist policies only exposes the U.S. military to long-term entrapment. Like the U.S. Invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the U.S. mission to support Saudi Arabia in its offensives in Yemen, prolonged involvement in Syria makes scaling back or withdrawing more difficult.
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