US Troops to Stay in Syria and Iraq but Perhaps Not for Long
In recent weeks, there have been meetings in Washington and in Baghdad about the presence in Iraq and Syria of US troops, whose official mandate is to aid local forces against remnants of the so-called Islamic State (IS).
These meetings come following the post-October 7 surge of attacks on US forces in the region by Iran-backed Shia militias seeking to take advantage of the Israel-Hamas war and Arab public anger over unconditional US support for Israel. The Biden administration does not want to be seen as “cutting and running,” as that would show these militias and their patron in Tehran that they can drive the United States out of the Middle East. The strong US military response earlier in February following a January 28 Iraqi militia drone strike killed three American servicemembers at a US base in Jordan has temporarily stopped such attacks. But the ongoing discussions in the US and Iraqi capitals suggest that Washington may be planning for an eventual withdrawal.
Since 2013 the United States has partnered with the Syrian Kurds to combat IS in the northeastern part of the country. US military commanders found that these Kurds, mostly associated with the People’s Protection Units (YPG), were experienced fighters willing to sacrifice to rid their area of the IS presence. The fact that these Kurds incurred more than 10,000 casualties in the counter-IS campaign earned them the respect of the US military. Given that large parts of northeastern Syria are inhabited by Arab Sunni tribes, however, the United States worked with the Syrian Kurds to bring ethnic Arabs into their militia force, thereby creating the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
This force is the main protector of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), formerly called Rojava, which means “west” in the Syrian Kurdish dialect and refers to what Syrian Kurds see as the western part of traditional Kurdistan.