Mark Perry, Al Jazeera: Why military leaders believe US escalation in Iraq is inevitable
Analysis: Serving, retired U.S. commanders believe deploying trainers to Iraq won’t be enough to stop ISIL
President Barack Obama’s plan to send an additional 450 to 500 soldiers to Iraq’s Anbar province won’t be his last word on the crisis posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), several senior serving and retired U.S. military officers believe. Turning the tide against ISIL in Iraq will require a more robust U.S. military commitment, with options for escalation a matter of lively debate.
Obama on Tuesday announced that the additional troops would be deployed to train units of the Iraq Security Force (ISF), which Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said “showed no will to fight” to prevent the city of Ramadi from falling to ISIL. The administration also hoped those troops could provide a bridge to Anbar’s Sunni militias, which had initially fought the U.S. occupation, then after 2006 sided with the U.S. against Al-Qaeda, but had been alienated by the Shia-led government in Baghdad. The new training commitment would bring the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq to just over 3,500.
WNU Editor: A sobering assessment on U.S. options in the war against the Islamic State. Read it all.
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