US forces drive their armoured vehicles near the northern Syrian village of Darbasiyah, on the border with Turkey on April 28, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / DELIL SOULEIMAN
The U.S. is working to maintain its “international coalition” in order to prevent ISIS from reemerging, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Kathryn Wheelbarger, stressed in an interview with The Washington Times.
According to Wheelbarger, U.S. military officials and State Department diplomats are trying get commitments from all 79 coalition members to continue the group’s work. The official said that an agreement to extend the “Defeat ISIS” mission will likely be finalized during the NATO ministerial meeting next June.
“We expect the threat to evolve, [and] the importance of the coalition is our priority,” Wheelbarger said in the interview that was released on April 9.
Last December, President Donald Trump made a decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria. However, a backlash from senior officials in his administration and the negative reaction from the mainstream media forced him to make a U-turn and accept to keep up to 400 troops in the war-torn country.
Wheelbarger told the Washington Times that the efforts to keep the coalition intact were underway even when the Trump administration was planning to withdraw all forces from Syria. The statement reveals how many U.S. officials worked to reverse the withdrawal decision.
As for the coalition’s new tasks, Wheelbarger said that the US-led force will focus on economic and diplomatic support for countries and groups facing ISIS threat, like Iraq and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
“We have to be able to use all the tools of governance to address the challenge,” said Wheelbarger.
The extension of the US-led coalition mission in Syria and Iraq will likely increase the tension in the Middle East. Many regional powers including the Damascus government, Iran and even Turkey believe that the U.S. should withdraw from Syria, at least.
There is nothing in the US Constitution about maintaining a standing world army of allied lapdog nations for ‘defense’ against manufactured enemies. In fact, we were warned specifically about doing any such thing within the US because it always leads to some kind of trouble – usually in relation to various kinds of abuse of power. (Too late – the Patriot Act and DHS have already skirted that pesky restriction).
I know the US Pentagon, the MIC and Israel hate the dangerous constraints the US Constitution places on them, but this is going well beyond the point of creating a One World Army and transferring some of the US citizen’s sovereignty to it. Why is the US so insistent on creating the exact conditions – globally – that led to a revolution against our British rulers here in the Colonies?
One should not forget the analogy that can be drawn between the situation here and that of Athens in the years following the defeat of the Persians. Athens was the democratic hero, and head of a united league of city states. But as time passed, Athens became more and more arrogant, treated its allies as lapdogs, sought to create an empire, failed at Syracuse, alienated allies, and this led to the rise of Sparta and the latter’s eventual triumph.
American coalitions consist of an American slave master, and slaves.
We dont feel so. We feel, we are in an unit which contain military as well economic, which give us safety compared to other solution.
We see no Hitler here. We see no Stalin. We see no Putin. We see Britts and French are still big to my country, but are friends even they are their own too.
Austria/Hungaria and Ottomans are reduced too.
You again show well, You have no idea about west as well as our other options. None here would choose and jump into Your low productive quagmire staying in old days even insisting in it. NONE.
You only are correct in one thing USA partly replaced Empires.
It would be nice, if You could show us something better.
“It would be nice, if You could show us something better.”
Yeah that’s what my old girlfriend used to say.