President Obama has ordered the deployment of 450 U.S. troops to Iraq in order to bolster the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group. While it appears to be a small deployment, the troops will need a base to stay, which in turn would need to be secured by expanding U.S. military umbrella in the region.
The White House insists that it is not a shift in overall strategy, although recently it was revealed by officials that there was no strategy on Iraq. President Barack Obama ran on a campaign of winding down foreign wars when he was elected for the office twice in the past.
The American base will be constructed in eastern Anbar province, at the Iraqi military base of Taqaddum. It will be used to train and equip sunni fighters with the help of the Iraqi government to recapture territories lost to the Islamic State.
Sputnik News reports:
Even as the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group has taken advantage of the power vacuum left by the US invasion, gaining large swaths of Iraq and Syria, Obama has remained steadfast: No boots on the ground. “As your commander in chief, I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq,” the president said last September.
Poster Comment:
Related: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-22/iran-s-forces-and-u-s-share-a-base-in-iraq
