FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
September 9, 2020
Contact: press@defensepriorities.org
WASHINGTON, DC—Today, Politico reported CENTCOM will be reducing the number of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan over the coming months. Defense Priorities Policy Director Benjamin H. Friedman issued the following statement in response:
“The troop reductions in Afghanistan and Iraq announced today are tardy and insufficient but good news.
“In Afghanistan we are now nearly 19 years into a war that long ago achieved its primary counterterrorism aims, and has since failed to achieve its grandiose counterinsurgency objectives. It should be obvious by now that the war, far from advancing U.S. security, afflicts it. Experience shows that U.S. counterterrorism goals can be met without large, permanent ground forces there. This withdrawal should be a step towards the swift removal of remaining U.S. ground forces.
“In Iraq, the purpose of U.S. forces has been unclear since the destruction of ISIS’s caliphate. They have reliably come under rocket fire that threatens to escalate into a larger war with Shi’ite militias or Iran, which we officially blame for militia activity. U.S. troops are not preventing a renewal of ISIS by continuing to occupy Iraq, indeed they may be fanning the sectarian grievances that keep up support for the Sunni extremism underlying it.
“Even if this push to wind down overly ambitious, unnecessary wars is an effort to win votes in November, then we should be grateful to live in a democracy still functional enough to operate based on the interests and wishes of the American people.”
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