Earlier this month, Iraq's prime minister said that the U.S. military no longer needed in his country. As surprising as it may sound, this is nothing new. Iraqi leaders are calling out to the usa Withdraw troops for many years.
U.S. forces in Iraq completed their mission more than five years ago, in March 2019, when ISIS lost all of its territory. But for mysterious reasons, U.S. troops remain, overstaying their welcome and becoming a magnet for attacks by rebel groups, including Iranian proxies.
The obligation to withdraw from Iraq should be clear, but not everyone wants to meet with US troops. Critics are throwing all manner of proverbial pasta against the wall, looking for an anti-leave argument to stick. Perhaps inevitably, given the recent anniversary of 9/11, they resorted to scare tactics, conjuring images of plumes of smoke and burning towers with breathless warnings. The resurgence of ISIS It will terrify the world.
This kind of fear-mongering is disingenuous, and the American people must see through it. The truth is, ISIS' threat to the American homeland is and always has been surprisingly small. That is certainly no reason to keep American troops in Iraq indefinitely.
The ISIS terrorist threat to U.S. civilians was always exaggerated beyond reason. First and foremost, ISIS was never inherently a terrorist group designed to harm America. Terrorism is characterized by attacking soft targets, civilians, to intimidate powerful countries into complying with political demands. At its peak, ISIS was an insurgent group seeking to gain territory and establish a caliphate. This means that even though ISIS has carried out terrorist attacks in the Middle East and Europe, the organization has focused its greatest energies on local resistance in Iraq and Syria.
Without a doubt, ISIS brutalized the occupied population. But few, if any, ISIS fighters actually targeted the U.S. mainland. In fact, the vast majority of so-called “ISIS terrorism” in the United States was perpetrated by homegrown ISIS volunteers with no substantial ties to ISIS. According to global terrorism database Of the 455 terrorist attacks in the United States from 2014 to 2020, “jihadist-inspired extremists'' carried out 31 attacks, killing 94 people, according to a University of Maryland study. . There were zero crimes committed by Islamic State or its affiliated organizations.
It is not even clear whether ISIS directly provokes violence by its worshipers. scientists discovered No correlation Between ISIS propaganda statements and attacks by ISIS wannabes.
But opponents of the drawdown have cleverly conflated ISIS attacks on Iraqi and Syrian troops with potential terrorist attacks on American civilians, as if they were the same thing. it's not. Just because the Islamic State is able to take rudimentary actions; ambush Attacking lightly defended targets in Syria does not mean the group can pose a meaningful threat to ordinary Americans on the mainland. Therefore, while ISIS activities in the Middle East may be true, This year it has increasedthe suggestion that the US will somehow become even more vulnerable as a result is pure alarmism.
Additionally, purported threats from ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K) should not undermine the basis for America's withdrawal from Iraq. ISIS-K has proven more dangerous in recent years than the original ISIS, massacre In March 2024, more than 140 people will gather at Crocus City Music Hall in Moscow. kill Two months earlier, a 95-year-old man died in Kerman, Iran. But ISIS-K also has bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, thousands of miles from its Operation Inherent Resolve deployment in Iraq.
What's more, even though there were no U.S. troops in Afghanistan, U.S. authorities detected both plots and alerted Russian and Iranian authorities. in advance. There was a warning taken seriously —These tragedies could have been prevented if America's allies had done so. This shows how sophisticated America's beyond-the-horizon intelligence capabilities are in neutralizing terrorist threats without boots on the ground.
Fearmongers are also exaggerating the danger of a recent failed plot that had only tenuous links to ISIS. Last month, Austrian authorities arrested two teenagers. ”radicalized online“Suspected of plotting to attack Taylor Swift's concert in Vienna (read: I've never met an ISIS extremist in my life) What are their ties to ISIS?” declared on social media “Oath of Allegiance” and was subsequently deleted and some ISIS tool Found on their property. What are their weapons? Hobbies:knife or homemade explosives”
However, newspaper headlines responded uncritically U.S. authorities have claimed that ISIS-themed cosplay by several Austrian teens poses a grave danger to Americans. “They were planning to kill huge numbers of people, tens of thousands of people,'' the CIA deputy director exclaimed. david coenHe praised the role of his agency in the arrest.
The Islamic State is a group of thugs that has successfully turned an entire region against them. No one likes them, nor should they. Their rise a decade ago prompted an overwhelming countervailing response from Iran, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, the Kurds, the Taliban, and even Russia. But they pose no real threat to the U.S. homeland, and there is no real reason to maintain them. 2,500 US troops in Iraq.
Rosemary Keranic is Director of Middle East Engagement at Defense Priorities.
