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Reason
Reason
Justin Logan

Why Are American Troops Still in Iraq and Syria?

On November 7, President Biden spoke of the "truly sacred obligation" Americans have to take care of our troops. He's right about that obligation, but his policy in Iraq and Syria is violating his most sacred duty as their commander in chief: to give his troops a clear, attainable mission and not to leave them as sitting ducks.

There's no other way to describe the role the 900 U.S. troops in Syria are playing, for example. With the collapse of the ISIS caliphate in 2018, then-President Donald Trump announced that "we have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there," adding that there would be a "full" and "rapid" withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country. His defense secretary, Jim Mattis, and his Middle East guru Brett McGurk—who is now Biden's Middle East guru—resigned in protest.

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