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The announcement by the administration of United States President Donald Trump that it planned to withdraw American soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan by January 15 was met with extreme caution by parties at home and abroad, but a US military expert believed that the measure would have no impact on the situation in the two countries.
The Charge d’Affaires of the US Department of Defense, Christopher Miller, revealed in a press conference on Tuesday that the number of US forces in Iraq will be around 2,500, and that is 3,000 currently, and the remaining number in Afghanistan it will also be 2,500, up from 4,500 today.
In a rare public criticism of the United States, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that Afghanistan “would once again become a haven for international terrorist organizations seeking to inflict harm on Western countries if foreign forces suddenly leave. “.
“We are in Afghanistan, for almost 20 years, and no NATO ally wants to stay longer than necessary … But at the same time, the price of leaving too early or in an uncoordinated way can be very high,” he said in a statement. .
The international military coalition forces in Afghanistan are made up of about 12,000 troops from 38 countries, but the alliance depends on American soldiers and infrastructure, according to a Washington Post report.
NATO fears that the withdrawal of the United States will lead to the withdrawal of other countries from the alliance, given their dependence on the logistics capabilities of the United States.
The leader of the Republican majority in the United States Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell, also warned his ally, President Donald Trump, considering that this measure would give the militant movements a “great propaganda victory.” He said that “the consequences of a premature US withdrawal may be even worse than the withdrawal of (former US President) Barack Obama from Iraq in 2011, which led to the rise of ISIS.”
Afghanistan, under the rule of the Taliban in the 1990s, was a safe haven for militant movements and their prominent leaders, the most important of which was former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and after the attacks by Al Qaeda On September 11, 2001, US air strikes removed the movement from power.
Retired US Colonel and London Study Center strategic expert Anthony Schaeffer said in a statement to Al-Hurra that the mission in Afghanistan had been “completed” after the end of the objective of using force there in 2001 against the movement. and the fall of bin Laden.
He explained that after Trump assumed the presidency in 2017, he ordered ways to get out of there, negotiated with the Taliban, and an agreement was reached with them, which is currently being implemented.
The expert, who ruled out that a further withdrawal of soldiers from there would have negative repercussions, said: “There is no reason to stay.”
US forces are present in Afghanistan for two purposes, the first: to train and provide advice and assistance to the Afghan security forces, side by side with NATO allies to repel the Taliban, and the second: to confront terrorist threats from groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda, according to the US website “VOX.”
Jonathan Schroden, an expert on military affairs, told the same website that reducing US forces there to 2,500 troops would mean that the United States “will give up the training mission and focus solely on fighting terrorism.”
However, he noted that the US military has provided support to Afghan forces from a distance for the past few months, due to the Corona virus, so the United States may continue to provide assistance if it leaves.
Experts believe that dealing with terrorist threats in the next period will depend mainly on the extent to which the Taliban fulfill their obligations to confront international terrorist groups, according to the agreement signed with the United States last February.
Edmund Vuitton Brown, the United Nations coordinator who monitors the work of ISIS, al-Qaeda and the Taliban, warned in a report he presented to the UN Security Council last May that al-Qaeda maintains a presence in the country and has ties with the Taliban, emphasizing that bringing peace will depend on the Taliban’s commitment to fighting international terrorism.
Schaeffer, in his remarks to the Al-Hurra website, downplayed concerns about terrorism in Afghanistan, saying that if “a problem occurs, the United States can go back there if it wants to.”
The same situation applies to Iraq, because the United States will not withdraw completely, since it will maintain a measure of military presence, and the withdrawal of forces “does not mean that we leave Iraq, because the United States can have a presence there again if it wants to. “according to Schaeffer. .
Regarding concerns about the possibility of the return of ISIS, he said that the US forces have special forces that can prevent it, noting that they have made successful efforts in recent years, after declaring the defeat of the organization.
“If there is a problem there, we will study what forces we need if we want,” he added.
And US forces in Iraq are currently aiming to train Iraqi forces and share intelligence with them in their fight against ISIS and Iranian-backed militias.
While reducing the number may make the task more difficult, analysts told “vox” that the remaining number can carry out this task, since the US military has had enough experience to deal with the situation in Iraq in light of the presence fewer soldiers on the ground.
“The process of reducing the size of the US military presence has been underway for some time,” said Randa Salim, an Iraq expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
The US president had previously spoken of his desire to reduce the number of US forces in the two countries.
During his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi in Washington last August, Trump said US forces would leave Iraq, but did not give a schedule or specific levels of forces.
The United States deployed thousands of troops to Iraq in 2014 to lead a global coalition fighting ISIS.
Even after Baghdad declared the group’s defeat in late 2017, the United States and other coalition forces continued their work, training local forces, conducting airstrikes and drone surveillance operations to prevent the group’s return. .
At the end of 2018, there were an estimated 5,200 US troops in Iraq, and they made up the bulk of the then 7,500 coalition forces, according to US officials.
Dozens of missile attacks against US forces and the US embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone resulted in the death and injury of US and Iraqi soldiers.
