Calls mount for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and Syria

Shafaq News/ In the wake of security tensions and military escalation in the Middle East, particularly in Palestine, and the continued attacks on the US-led Global Coalition forces in Iraq and Syria, "The Hill," an American newspaper, has advocated for the withdrawal of the small U.S. forces openly stationed in Iraq and Syria, as former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's decision to withdraw American troops from Beirut in response to heightened risks and attacks.

The Hill suggested that "America's security interests are best served when our military can exercise decisive force by commencing operations at the time and place of its choosing. As the saying goes, our men and women in uniform should never be sent into a fair fight."

Amid the tensions, the Newspaper said, "it is helpful to differentiate the unambiguous goal of routing hostile forces and retaking territory captured by ISIS from the far murkier objective of extinguishing a deviant ideology. The U.S. military is a powerful force when its mission is clear, its resources deployed in measure, and a strong commitment to victory is assured through robust civic and congressional engagement. When we are careless with our military might — or only halfheartedly committed without the clear intention of winning — we endanger U.S. service members and our partners."

The Hill linked between the current actions and the attack on Oct. 23 on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, when a suicide bomber detonated a truck bomb, killing 241 U.S. service members.

"To his credit, President Reagan faced the music and redeployed the Marines to ships offshore, quietly withdrawing them from a bloody and multisided civil war. This course correction saved further American lives, resources and resolve. Forty years removed, no one can accuse Reagan of exercising anything other than strategic awareness and political fortitude for his decision to extract American servicemen from an unnecessary danger."

The Hill called on to "learn from this lesson."

"The time is now to reclaim the initiative and deny our adversaries a target by withdrawing our troops from Iraq and Syria. Whatever orders supposedly justify their missions should be weighed against the fact that, should serious harm befall them, a wider regional war may be inescapable. Such a conflict would serve neither American nor Israeli interests."

"Meanwhile, their presence is unrelated to the legitimate threat of devastating firepower the U.S. can bring to bear. The recent deployment of the Eisenhower and Ford Carrier Strike Groups, an Ohio-class nuclear submarine armed with 154 tomahawk cruise missiles, and numerous other warships in the area offer unequivocal evidence of our ability to project overwhelming force, defend American interests and assist our allies."

"In contrast, the presence of troops taking fire on vulnerable and isolated bases in Iraq and Syria seems to be predicated on a dare not to kill them. They were stationed there years before the current crisis began, and their continued deployment remains disconnected from any immediate goal. This is a wager that constricts, rather than permits, our freedom of action."

The Hill said the U.S. military should be "deployed to fight and win, not set as bait in a trap of our own making. As someone who spent a career fighting our long wars, I must place my trust in policymakers to find the courage to update their thinking, play to our strengths and avoid unnecessary catastrophe. Our country depends upon it. So, too, do the lives of those in harm's way."