The U.S. needs to get out of the Middle East — soon

Others beg to differ. Daniel Depetris at Defense Priorities, another Washington think tank, thinks the US should withdraw its roughly 3,400 military personnel in Iraq and Syria as soon as possible, and eventually also the tens of thousands in the Gulf states and the rest of the region.

That’s because the US troops have completed their ostensible mission of the past decade, which has been to destroy the Islamic State, a barbaric terrorist group that formed in the aftermath of America’s ill-considered second war against Iraq. Today, the Islamic State no longer controls any territory and has been degraded to a point where its regional foes, from Syrian Kurds to Shia fighters, can keep it subdued without US help.

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