Trump didn't have to withdraw troops from Syria to keep his promise

Michael O'Hanlon and Omer Taspinar

Opinion contributors

President Donald Trump is pulling U.S. forces out of at least two of the 15 or so positions they now maintain in northeastern Syria, where Kurdish-dominated forces of the Syrian Democratic Front control most territory and hold more than 10,000 ISIS-affiliated prisoners in detention. His purpose is apparently to free up the border area for the Turkish incursion that has just been reported.

Ironically, Trump also simultaneously threatens to retaliate against economically against Turkey, should Turkey's President Erdogan decide that going after Kurdish terrorists on his soil requires such a cross-border invasion against other Kurds in the region. Trump also claims, in his various tweets and comments of the last couple of days, that pulling the 1,000 U.S. forces who now remain in Syria out of that country would honor a campaign promise to wind down America's overseas military commitments. Perhaps the United States will soon leave all of its positions inside Syria; it is hard to know what the president intends.

Should President Trump keep his 'campaign promises?'

This logic is badly flawed. There are several reasons why no political promise or electoral mandate requires any such withdrawal — whether from the two positions near the Turkish border, or the other parts of Syria where GIs help keep an eye on ISIS, Iran, and other threats:

► Politicians claim mandates all the time but rarely is the verdict of an election so clear as to provide them. We do not vote issue-by-issue for candidates, with multiple-part voter referenda on many issues. We ultimately choose one candidate, who has inevitably made dozens of promises in the course of a campaign, over another who has made her own multiple pledges. As such, we cannot know which promises mattered most to voters. Polls can inquire, but they are rarely clear or conclusive. This point is obvious at one level, yet elected leaders (not just Trump) repeatedly invoke supposed mandates to justify their own gut instincts or policy preferences when in fact they can lay claim to no such thing. Arguably, Trump's promises about economic nationalism, views on law and order, opposition to several of President Obama's policies on matters like health care and energy, Supreme Court preferences, and several other matters all gained more attention and traction in his campaign than the promise to reduce military commitments abroad. Does he really have a mandate about all these things?

Utter confusion:Biggest danger of Syria withdrawal is Trump's lack of a plan

► The current U.S. military presence in Syria of 1,000 troops represents 0.05 percent of all American military forces in uniform today. That's right, to be crystal clear, that figure is one-twentieth of one percent of American military strength, since the United States has more than two million total troops, active and reserve. Put differently, it is roughly 0.5 percent of all U.S. forces deployed or based abroad today. In terms of costs, a rough estimate would also suggest that those 1,000 troops backed up by American airpower in places like Qatar consume less than 0.5 percent of the total defense budget. These costs and strains are entirely sustainable.

► That total of 1,000 troops is also less than the figure of roughly 2,000 in Syria that Trump inherited from Obama nearly three years ago. Why not view that as vindication of his campaign promise to reduce U.S. forces abroad, rather than feel any need to aim for zero? Did voters really expect or demand that latter outcome? In fact, polls suggest that issues like Syria and Afghanistan were nowhere near the top of most voters' priorities back in 2016, or today.

Why does total withdrawal have to be the answer?

► President Trump can take some justifiable pride that, building on the mission inherited from President Obama, his strategy has defeated the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq. That counterterrorism objective was arguably his larger campaign promise, rather than the one about pulling forces home, and he has achieved it. But it is a fragile accomplishment, since the ISIS fighters were not all killed, and many of those who were captured, as noted above, are now being guarded by Kurdish forces in the very part of Syria that Erdogan now threatens to attack. The Kurds will necessarily defend themselves and their communities if that eventuality comes to pass, meaning that they will have fewer personnel to guard ISIS fighters (some of whom already occasionally slip out of the camps/prisons where they now live). More unreformed extremists will inevitably escape, repudiating Trump's pledge to squelch terrorism throughout the region.

At this point, the Syrian Kurds have considerable leverage on the ground because they are holding 12,000 ISIS prisoners in several detention facilities. Moreover, there are some 58,000 ISIS family members at the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria. President Erdogan has apparently promised his army can take care of this problem. Yet, it is clear that the Turkish military will have its hand full fighting its main target. ISIS has never been the top priority of the Turkish national security establishment. It should surprise no one if the Kurds release the ISIS prisoners and prove that Turkey has in fact no power to control the real terrorist threat in Syria.

We've done our job by defeating ISIS:Trump is right to withdraw US troops from Syria.

► Thus, Trump has conflicting campaign promises, it would appear — defeat ISIS and al Qaeda on the one hand, bring back U.S. troops from frustrating and long deployments abroad on the other. How to resolve such a contradiction? How about appealing, not only to common sense given the small size and considerable effectiveness of the American presence in Syria today, but to the Constitution that Trump was elected to uphold? That Constitution makes him commander in chief and charges the federal government with national defense as its first and paramount priority. In a situation where American GIs are successfully defending the nation's security interests abroad, in an economical and efficient manner, the onus should be on advocates any option that would weaken or end such a capability.

President Trump's frustration with the forever wars is understandable. But in Syria, we have after years of policy failure, heartbreak, and danger to western Europe and North America, found an effective policy that involves very modest costs to the United States in blood and treasure. President Trump should celebrate and preserve this success rather than feel some need to end it.

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and author of "The Science of War: Defense Budgeting, Military Technology, Logistics, and Combat Outcomes" is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelEOHanlon. Omer Taspinar is a scholar at the Brookings Institution and a professor at the National War College.

Syria pullout: Donald Trump is wrecking a policy that wasn't broke

The Editorial Board

USA TODAY

The abrupt move places America's security interests at risk by threatening to undo the U.S.-led campaign that destroyed the Islamic State caliphate in March.

This is the second time Trump has ordered a Syrian withdrawal after a phone call with Turkey's leader.

'A precipitous withdrawal ... would only benefit Russia, Iran and the Assad regime.'

After expending tragic sums of blood and treasure for decades in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S military finally found a formula for success in Syria at minimal American casualties and cost. Now President Donald Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the experiment.

In the name of ending America's "ridiculous Endless Wars," Trump on Sunday ordered a pullback of U.S. forces from the Turkish/Syrian border. The abrupt move places America's security interests at risk by threatening to undo the U.S.-led campaign that destroyed the Islamic State caliphate in March.

Withdrawing the U.S. troops also exposes America's Syrian-Kurdish allies, the same people who did most of the fighting and dying to defeat ISIS, to Turkish aggression.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who regards the Syrian Kurds as terrorists, vowed in a phone call with Trump on Sunday to send troops across the border to seize a zone 300 miles long and 20 miles deep into Syria — an area where 300,000 people could be dislocated. Trump gave the autocrat a green light, ordering the withdrawal of a small U.S. military contingent whose presence on the border, backed up by U.S. air power, had been a check against Turkish attacks on Kurdish allies.

The Kurds, who lost thousands of fighters battling ISIS, now feel betrayed, and who can blame them?

This is the second time Trump has ordered a Syrian withdrawal after a phone call with Erdogan. Earlier this year, Trump reduced to about 1,000 an already small force of U.S. troops in Syria that was working to finish off ISIS and tamp down any resurgence.

By now pulling troops away from the border, Trump demonstrates that American promises to allies are not be trusted. His actions might also lead Syrian Democratic Forces — already stretched thin securing the former caliphate and managing detention centers crammed with 10,000 captured ISIS fighters — to shift resources and defend against invading Turkish troops.

Even some of Trump's strongest Republican supporters recognize this as a strategic blunder. "A precipitous withdrawal ... would only benefit Russia, Iran and the (Syrian dictator Bashar) Assad regime," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday, urging Trump to show leadership and reverse course.

Faced with withering bipartisan opposition, Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday in a schizophrenic blast praising Turkey as a NATO ally and lucrative trading partner, while threatening Turkey with economic sanctions for "unforced or unnecessary fighting."

Trump also dangled a White House visit for Erdogan. The Turks, so far, appear committed to crossing the border and attacking Syrian Kurds.

The United States has for decades positioned American troops around the world, from Europe to South Korea, to help allies maintain peace. If the light American footprint in Syria can do the same, there should be no reason to rush for the exits.

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Putin's troop withdrawal from Syria may not be all he says it is

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement Monday of a "significant" withdrawal of forces from Syria reflects both Syrian President Bashar Assad's success on the battlefield and Putin's political campaign at home

Analysts remain skeptical that Putin, who used a surprise visit to Syria to announce the partial withdrawal and praise Russian forces for defeating “terrorists,” will lessen his military commitment to Assad.

The Syrian leader has relied heavily on support from Iran and Russia to stay in power. Russia’s decision to back Assad’s forces with airstrikes beginning in 2015 has helped the Syrian regime turn the tide on rebel forces seeking to overthrow Assad.

Putin said Russia would maintain its naval and air bases in Syria. “It doesn’t actually change the relationship between Putin and Assad,” said Katherine Zimmerman, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.

More:Russia’s Putin orders 'significant' withdrawal of troops from Syria

More:Syria's civil war: A look at how we got to this point

Last year Putin made a similar pledge to reduce Russia's military presence. At the time Putin changed the mix of military forces but did not cut back the deployment of armed forces.

On Monday, the Russian military said it would withdraw 23 combat planes and two helicopter gunships, which would represent about two-thirds of its aircraft in Syria, said Chris Kozak, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.

Kozak said Russia would likely replace those aircraft with other military hardware or forces. “In the past he has used (a similar) announcement as an opportunity to reshuffle the deck of what he has in Syria,” Kozak said.

Syria's civil war has been dragging on since 2011. The United Nations estimates at least 400,000 people have died and more than 5 million Syrians have fled the country. Another 6 million remain displaced internally.

With Russia's help, Assad has cleared rebels from most parts of the country and strengthened his grip on power, which only several years ago looked tenuous.

The United States is also involved in the conflict, launching an air campaign against Islamic State militants in Syria in 2014. U.S.-backed ground forces recently pushed the terror group from its self-described capital of Raqqa in eastern Syria.

Putin has claimed in the past that his forces are in Syria to battle the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. But the Pentagon has said Russia’s main goal is to back Assad, and its targets included moderate rebel forces seeking to overthrow the Syrian leader.

U.S. and Russian forces have attempted to keep their distance from each other as both sides operate in eastern Syria. The United States has made it clear it is not in Syria to oppose Assad with force.

The timing of Monday's announcement could reflect Russian politics. Putin announced last week that he will run for re-election in March, and he might want to highlight what he considers a Syrian success.

"Here in Syria, far away from our borders, you helped the Syrian people to preserve their state and fend off attacks by terrorists," Putin said Monday while addressing Russian forces at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia.

“It’s a little bit of a ‘mission accomplished,’ vibe,” Kozak said, referring to President George W. Bush’s declaration after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

Assad's forces may have strengthened their position, but they will continue to face insurgents in contested areas of the country. "They're still looking to maintain security in areas they have cleared," Kozak said.

Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard

Russia fires missiles from warships into Syria amid new escalation

Jim Michaels, and Oren Dorell

USA TODAY

Russian warships fired a volley of cruise missiles into Syria from the Caspian Sea on Wednesday as Russian-backed Syrian government troops launched a ground offensive to crush rebel forces opposing the regime of President Bashar Assad.

The missile strikes mark a major escalation of Russia's recent involvement in Syria's long civil war and a growing threat to a faltering U.S. policy in Syria.

Russia said four warships carried out 26 missile strikes from the Caspian Sea, destroying 11 targets more than 900 miles away. The missiles crossed Iranian and Iraqi airspace to reach their targets.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is backing longtime ally Assad in his 4-year-old civil war against rebels that now include the Islamic State extremists and more moderate opposition groups backed by the United States. That goal runs counter to the Obama administration's objectives. It is leading a coalition campaign of airstrikes in Iraq and Syria to defeat the Islamic State and is calling for Assad's removal.

"We're really on our back foot and have been since the Russians started their buildup in Syria," said Jeff White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "We’ve lost the initiative."

The Pentagon has accused Russia of bolstering Assad by attacking moderate opposition groups the U.S. supports. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Wednesday called the Russian strategy "tragically flawed."

Russian officials countered Wednesday that their goal is to go after all terrorist groups. Russia seeks “a terror-free Syria and a terror-free region,” Aydar Aganin, a Middle East analyst at the Russian embassy in Washington, said in an interview.

Rejecting U.S. claims that the airstrikes are not aimed at Islamic State militants, Aganin said, "We strike terrorists.”

In defending Assad, however, Moscow does not appear to be distinguishing between the extremist and more moderate rebel groups, which is heightening tensions with Washington at a time when it is struggling to find a winning strategy for ending Syria's civil war and halting a flood of refugees swarming into the Middle East and Europe.

Even before the Russian buildup, the Pentagon acknowledged its plan to field a force of moderate rebels to fight the Islamic State had run into problems, and it had suspended most of the program after training just a few fighters.

One U.S. military-trained group was attacked by al-Qaeda-linked forces shortly after arriving in Syria, and another turned over equipment and ammunition to the same terrorist organization. Only a handful of Pentagon-trained opposition forces remain in Syria.

"I’m the first one to acknowledge it has not worked the way it was supposed to," President Obama said recently.

The White House and military officials are examining other ways to support moderate opposition forces to counter the Islamic State. But now those groups may be vulnerable to Russian attacks.

The U.S.-led coalition has dropped thousands of bombs on Islamic State targets but has kept ground forces out of the country. Russia has deployed helicopter gunships, tanks and rocket launchers to Syria, along with troops to guard Russian bases. Putin said he would not send ground combat troops to Syria.

The Russian support appears to have energized Assad's forces, who had suffered a number of defeats. Now they are engaged in an offensive centered around Hama, a city in north-central Syria. Russian airstrikes appeared to be supporting the offensive.

Obama has accused Putin of intervening in Syria "because his client, Mr. Assad, was crumbling." Obama wants Assad out, citing atrocities against his own people.

"Now we have to contemplate going to war with Russia if we want to get rid of Assad," said Christopher Chivvis, an analyst at RAND Corp.

Russian analyst Aganin said Moscow's goal is not to protect Assad but to fight the spread of terrorism. He noted that the Syrian battlefields are 300 miles from Russia’s Caucasus region. He said Russia estimates that 2,000 fighters from former Soviet republics have joined the radical group.

The militants “see parts of Russia as a target for this caliphate they are building,” said Yury Melnik, the Russian embassy press secretary. “If they succeed in standing their ground in Syria and Iraq, they may bring their activities closer and closer to Russia, which is a direct threat.”

Aganin said Russia wants whoever is fighting the Islamic State to join forces because eliminating the radical group would improve prospects for a political solution in Syria.

“It’s in the mutual interest of the Syrian army and the moderate opposition” to fight the Islamic State, “and we are ready to support both if we have a point of contact,” Melnik said.

The United States has said it is willing to hold "technical" talks with Russia to avoid a mishap between coalition and Russian pilots. However, the White House has said it would not coordinate more broadly with the Russians unless they agreed to a political transition that would remove Assad from power.

The Pentagon said it has already had to reroute a U.S. aircraft to maintain a safe distance from a Russian plane.

Dorell reported from Washington.

Opinion: Global jihadist movement is down but not out | CNN

Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. Bergen’s new paperback is “The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN —

ISIS and al Qaeda have largely receded from the headlines. It’s been three years since ISIS lost the last vestiges of the vast geographical “caliphate” that it had once lorded over in Iraq and Syria, while al Qaeda has found it hard to regroup after the death of its founder Osama bin Laden more than a decade ago.

Peter Bergen CNN

Yet ISIS is far from defeated in its heartland. The United Nations points to the continued presence of ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria, estimating their total strength to be between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters, according to a report published on Tuesday.

That strength was underlined by a dramatic prison break in January at a prison in Hasakah in northeastern Syria, where more than 3,000 ISIS fighters reportedly were held. ISIS fighters and US-allied Kurdish forces fought a 10-day battle at the prison, during which 100 to 300 ISIS fighters escaped, according to the UN report.

As a result of this resilience, the US continues a campaign of special operations forces ground raids and airstrikes against ISIS leaders. In February, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the group’s leader, died in a US ground operation, while earlier this month, a US airstrike killed another militant who was part of the group’s leadership, according to US Central Command.

But these military operations will not achieve much in the long term if the thousands of ISIS fighters and tens of thousands of displaced women and children from multiple countries remain unrepatriated in lightly secured and unsafe prisons and camps in northeastern Syria, creating what could be a whole new generation of ISIS recruits.

The solution is for the many countries that have their nationals in prisons and camps in northeastern Syria to take back their ISIS fighters for prosecution in cases where it’s merited. As for women and children living in the camps, they should be reintegrated back into their home societies and entered into deradicalization programs if that should prove necessary.

Senior US government officials, speaking Wednesday at a conference at the Middle East Institute in Washington, stressed that ISIS is far from defeated. Joshua Geltzer, US deputy homeland security adviser, told me in a discussion at the institute that ISIS remains “a threat to countries where it continues to have a presence, which is about 30 countries worldwide. It is still a threat to the region, Iraq, Syria and neighbors. And it is still a threat to the United States and our allies and partners.”

Of particular concern are more than 10,000 ISIS fighters and around 60,000 mostly women and children who are being held by America’s Kurdish allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces, in prisons and camps in northeastern Syria. The United Nations estimates that 30,000 of those held in the camps are under the age of 12 and are “at risk of radicalization” by ISIS ideologues.

Few countries will take back their nationals who are living in the squalid camps, fearing that they may be importing an ISIS problem. In the past three years, Iraq has taken back more than 600 fighters and nearly 2,500 “displaced Iraqi nationals,” according to Timothy Betts, the acting US special envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. This month, France took back 51 women and children, while 39 Americans have been returned to the United States, according to Betts.

Yet that number is less than 5% of the mostly 60,000 women and children – the majority from Iraq and Syria – and the more than 10,000 ISIS fighters who are being held in northeastern Syria.

At the current slow rate of repatriation, the ISIS fighters and tens of thousands of women and children might take decades to return to their home countries. By that time, even the youngest children in the camps could be adults in their 30s and will have spent almost their entire lives living in the filthy, disease-infested camps, which are ripe for ISIS indoctrination.

A wild card causing considerable consternation among US national security officials is the saber rattling by Turkey in recent weeks that it plans to send its military into neighboring northeastern Syria to annex territory controlled by the US-allied Kurdish groups fighting ISIS and running the facilities where the ISIS fighters and the women and children are being held. Turkey considers those Kurdish groups to be terrorists.

Dana Stroul, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, warned last week, “The United States opposes any Turkish operation in northern Syria. Such an operation puts at risk US forces, the coalition’s campaign against ISIS, and will introduce more violence into Syria. It would effectively end a ceasefire that has been in place for years at a time when violence is at its lowest levels since the onset of the conflict.”

Also concerning is that the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan almost a year ago because of President Joe Biden’s foolhardy decision to pull out all US troops from the country has given both al Qaeda and ISIS greater room to maneuver there, according to Tuesday’s UN report. Biden’s move was bad policy, and the US pullout was terribly executed, allowing the Taliban to maintain their alliance with al Qaeda and to bar women from jobs and teenage girls from education.

The UN report noted that Ayman al-Zawahiri, who replaced bin Laden as al Qaeda’s leader, is issuing “regular video messages that provided almost current proof of life” and “Zawahiri’s apparent increased comfort and ability to communicate has coincided with the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. …”

In Afghanistan, both ISIS and al Qaeda have acquired “night vision equipment, thermal imagers, and steel-penetrating bullets,” according to the UN report.

The United Nations assessed, however, that – for the moment – al Qaeda does not pose an “immediate international threat from its safe haven in Afghanistan … and does not currently wish to cause the Taliban international difficulty or embarrassment.”

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That’s the good news. But the bad news, according to the UN, is that al Qaeda now has key allies within the Taliban’s de facto government in Afghanistan, which will doubtless give al Qaeda more resources to regroup. Meanwhile, the local branch of ISIS in Afghanistan is now one of the “most vigorous” of ISIS’ regional networks globally, according to the UN.

The global jihadist movement, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, and whether part of ISIS or al Qaeda, is down but not out. And these groups will continue to take advantage of ungoverned or lightly governed spaces in the Muslim world, where they will remain a threat to the governments and populations of Muslim-majority countries – and to the West – for the foreseeable future.

Forces in Iraq, Syria will need U.S. help long after ISIS is gone, top ...

The U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State should prepare to maintain a presence in the region to train and support ground forces even after the imminent collapse of the militant group's so-called caliphate, the top coalition commander said.

“I think we need to structure ourselves to be prepared for a long-term commitment to building partner capacity in this area,” Army Lt. Gen. Paul Funk told USA TODAY.

Any decision about a long-term commitment of U.S. troops in Iraq would come from the White House, which has not yet publicly discussed its future plans. "I think that is exactly the way we’re leaning but that will be a decision for the policymakers," Funk said Thursday.

Commanders want to avoid a repeat of 2011 when the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq led to the Islamic State's invasion of Iraq three years later.

A long-term coalition presence will help Iraqi troops prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State, help professionalize Iraq's military and provide a balance against Iranian influence, said James Jeffrey, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

The Islamic State, once a formidable force that governed large swaths of Iraq and Syria, has been reduced to several thousand fighters in a string of isolated towns and villages along the Euphrates River. The militant group, also known as ISIS, controls about 5% of the territory it did at its peak.

Commanders expect ISIS to transform from a terror group controlling territory to a more disbursed organization of localized cells. The organization will still be capable of acts of terror, but will pose less of a regional threat than when it controlled territory and mobilized organized military forces.

Fighting that type of terrorist group requires a different set of skills. Much of the coalition training to date has been designed to build a force capable of fighting a conventional battle in cities like Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in Syria.

“We’ve got to be able to retool and get after those kinds of operations as well,” Funk said in a telephone interview from Baghdad. “We need to do that to build partner capacity to be a bulwark against this terrorist organization.”

Fighting a more conventional terrorist group organized in small, semi-independent cells requires a focus on intelligence and policing. It would not require the extensive air support the U.S.-led coalition has provided to Iraq’s army and the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Arabs and Kurds fighting ISIS.

"The vast portion of the military piece will morph to a training mission, but it is still required," Funk said.

Any long-term presence in the region will likely focus on Iraq, where the United States has an established government it is working with. In Syria, the U.S. is backing an alliance of militias and the country is in the midst of a civil war.

The U.S.-led coalition has trained more than 100,000 Iraqi troops during the past several years.

Three years after U.S. troops left Iraq in 2011, the country’s armed forces collapsed as the Islamic State swept across the border from neighboring Syria, capturing Mosul and threatening Baghdad.

The Obama administration said it had no choice but to withdraw because Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government would not agree to provide legal protections for a long-term U.S. military presence.

Analysts say the United States could have overcome Baghdad's objections if the administration was committed to a presence in Iraq. "The Obama administration was very lukewarm about staying in Iraq," said Stephen Biddle, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University.

The Trump administration is more inclined to have a long-term presence in Iraq. "The U.S. government has a strong interest in remaining," Jeffrey said.

Senior members of Trump's administration, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, have extensive experience in Iraq and relationships with officials in Baghdad.

The United States can avoid the pitfall of pressuring Baghdad to sign a so-called status of forces agreement. That requirement triggered a political debate in Iraq in 2011 that ultimately derailed continued U.S. presence there.

"We don't really need and should not insist upon such a formal agreement," said Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst at the Brookings Institution.

U.S. forces are currently operating under a less formal agreement between the two countries and could continue under the same arrangement, Jeffrey said.

The political environment in Baghdad has also changed since 2011. Iran still holds considerable sway in Baghdad, but the threat from ISIS has highlighted the need for international help.

Iran remains opposed to any continued U.S. presence, but Washington should be able to convince Baghdad to override Tehran's objections, Jeffrey said.

Jeffrey said the presence of U.S. forces would likely be less than 5,000. Currently the United States has about 5,500 U.S. troops in Iraq, serving primarily as advisers and trainers.

Funk said the U.S.-led coalition is still pursuing what is left of the Islamic State. The militants will try to put up an organized resistance in their remaining stronghold along the Euphrates River, he said.

Estimates of their strength range between 3,000 and 7,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria, down from a peak of more than 25,000 in 2015.

Most of their leaders have been killed or fled. “They’re kind of rudderless right now,” Funk said.

More:Defeat of ISIS in northern Iraq town marks milestone in campaign to eliminate group

More:ISIS 'capital' Raqqa falls to U.S.-backed forces. What it means for terror group's future

American-backed Syrian force declares victory over Islamic State

The Islamic State group has lost its final sliver of territory in Syria, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said Saturday in declaring victory over the extremists.

However, the announcement came with warnings that the group remains a threat.

Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the SDF, tweeted that the militant group, also known as ISIS, suffered "100 percent territorial defeat." He said that the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz, where jihadists had been mounting a last stand, "is free and the military victory against Daesh has been achieved." Daesh is ISIS' Arabic acronym.

Bali said that the self-declared caliphate that ISIS established in 2014, and which once sprawled across much of Syria and neighboring Iraq while imposing a brutal rule on as many as 8 million people, had been eradicated. He said the SDF pledged to continue the fight against remnants of the extremist group until they are completely gone.

Saturday's announcement is significant. It marks the end of a 4½-year military campaign by an array of forces against the extremist group, which at its height in 2014 ruled an area the size of the United Kingdom, including several major cities and towns.

It follows remarks by President Donald Trump after landing in Palm Beach, Florida, on Wednesday.

"That’s what we have right now," he said while showing reporters a map comparing ISIS-held territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014 with today. The map indicated ISIS' diminished territory.

It "will be gone by tonight," he said.

On Saturday, the White House issued a statement from Trump announcing that the ISIS-controlled area had been liberated.

"ISIS’s loss of territory is further evidence of its false narrative, which tries to legitimize a record of savagery that includes brutal executions, the exploitation of children as soldiers, and the sexual abuse and murder of women and children," Trump said in the statement. "To all of the young people on the internet believing in ISIS’s Propaganda, you will be dead if you join. Think instead about having a great life."

But the jihadist group remains a serious threat despite repeated announcements from Trump that it had been completely defeated and that its demise meant there was no longer any reason to keep U.S. troops deployed in Syria.

While ISIS has yielded all of its physical territory in Syria or Iraq, it is still a potent fighting force and continues to carry out insurgent attacks in both countries. It also maintains affiliates in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

ISIS is still "a great threat to our region and our world," said Gen. Mazloum Kobani, the commander of SDF forces. His comments were echoed by William Roebuck, the U.S.'s special envoy for Syria, who said ISIS remains a threat to the U.S. and its allies.

"We cannot be complacent. Even without territory, Daesh and its poisonous ideology will continue to pose a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, as well as to the wider world. The international community must remain firm in its determination to counter and defeat it," said Britain's foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, in a statement.

More:Hoda Muthana, who married into ISIS, won't get fast-tracked case, judge rules

According to a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, ISIS' military capabilities are far from obliterated. The Washington-based think tank estimates the militant group may still have 20,000 to 30,000 active fighters in Syria and Iraq.

Army Gen. Joseph Votel, commander for U.S. operations in South Asia and the Middle East, said in February that coalition forces needed to maintain "a vigilant offensive against the now largely dispersed and disaggregated (ISIS) that retains leaders, fighters, facilitators, resources and the profane ideology that fuels their efforts."

In January, U.S. military planners and officials issued a report for the Defense Department that said ISIS "could likely resurge in Syria within six to 12 months and regain limited territory" if adequate pressure by coalition forces was not maintained.

After Trump ordered a complete withdrawal of the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria, Defense Secretary James Mattis announced his intention to resign. In February, under pressure from Congress and the Pentagon, Trump agreed to leave a residual force of about 20 to 400 U.S. troops in Syria for "peacekeeping" purposes.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, denied in a statement this week a report in The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. military is now developing plans to keep nearly 1,000 troops in Syria. Dunford called the report "factually incorrect."

More:Told to leave, ISIS ‘caliphate’ holdouts in Syria stay devoted

Pentagon: Airstrikes killing terrorists, not civilians

Tom Vanden Brook

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – There are no credible reports of civilian casualties after more than 240 airstrikes in the U.S.-led air war against Islamic State and other terrorists in Iraq and Syria, a top Pentagon official said Friday.

Spy plane missions over the region have not shown that civilians have been wounded or killed, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told reporters. He cautioned that there is often a lag time in reports and assessments are ongoing.

Meantime, Dempsey said it was "too soon to tell" whether the missile and bomb strikes that began Monday had killed leaders of the Khorasan group, an offshoot of al-Qaeda that officials have said was in the final stages of planning for an attack on U.S. or European targets.

The Navy began the attack on Monday with 47 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from ships and aimed at the Khorasan group. Waves of fighters, bombers and drones followed. As of Friday, U.S. and Arab nations had struck 43 targets in Syria, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said. There have been about 200 attacks in Iraq.

The Pentagon is still assessing damage done to the Khorasan group, Hagel said. He called the attack on them "a critical operation."

The air war against the Islamic State — also known as ISIL or ISIS — began last month in Iraq and has spread into Syria. Hagel maintained there was no coordination of the attacks in Syria with President Bashar Assad, whom he said had lost all legitimacy. Pentagon officials have said the war to defeat the militants will take years; Hagel reaffirmed that notion.

"This will not be an easy, or brief effort," Hagel said.

Ultimately, the defeat of ISIL fighters will come at the hands of local military forces, not U.S. troops, according to Hagel and Dempsey. A key part of the strategy rests on U.S. training and equipping moderate Syrian opposition fighters.

French pilots have flown combat missions in Iraq with U.S. forces. Now, warplanes from Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands will take part. Hagel also noted that the British government voted Friday to join the air war in Iraq.

Still, Hagel said, "nobody is under any illusion" that U.S.-led airstrikes will defeat ISIL.

Dempsey said he would advise President Obama to send U.S. ground forces back to combat in Iraq or Syria to defeat ISIL if necessary, a stance he first made public last week in Senate testimony.

But he added that U.S. commandos are not needed to call in airstrikes now because ISIL targets are identifiable by spy planes and are far enough from allied forces to prevent friendly-fire accidents.

Grisly propaganda bomb targets ISIL

Tom Vanden Brook

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon on Thursday released a copy of its latest propaganda leaflet, appearing to urge young Syrians to reject the Islamic State with an illustration that echoes comic book super heroes.

The leaflets, titled Freedom Is Rising, shows four armed fighters, striding through a hellish scene at dawn, bodies of militants from the group also known as ISIL or ISIS, strewn at their feet. Warplanes for the U.S.-led coalition dropped about 50,000 of the leaflets on July 18 north of Raqqa, the capital of the group's self-proclaimed state, said Army Maj. Curtis Kellogg, a military spokesman.

The leaflet's graphic nature, including what looks like an eviscerated, dead militant, borrows imagery from graphic novels or comic books aimed at a younger audience, said Nicholas Heras, a researcher with the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

"The message that this leaflet sends is not at all ambiguous: ISIS is demonic, an army straight out of hell, and that the soldiers sent to vanquish it will succeed and will do so marching with the dawn of righteousness at their backs," Heras said. "The light of the dawn, which vanquishes the darkness of ISIS' rule, also has an overtone that the soldiers defeating ISIS are the ones who are holy, not ISIS, and that they are doing heavenly work."

Since last summer, ISIL has captured large pieces of territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq, brutalizing local populations. The allied bombing campaign strikes targets on a daily basis in both countries. The Pentagon and White House strategy has been to train and equip local forces to fight ISIL on the ground, saying they are the only ones capable of maintaining an enduring defeat of militant rule. There are about 3,300 U.S. troops in Iraq, none of them in a front line, combat role.

The July 18 leaflet drop is the fourth such propaganda mission since March. A special bomb dispersed leaflets in the first drop, but the military declines to say how they delivered the others. The military has also declined to release estimates on the effectiveness of the leaflets except to say they believe the drops have had a positive effect.

"The leaflet's message, like others released by the coalition, is intended to demoralize and dissuade potential and current ISIL fighters, followers and supporters from continuing their barbaric actions against the people of this region," Kellogg said.

Anti-ISIL forces in Syria, including Kurdish fighters, have retaken ground north of Raqqa in recent weeks in the vicinity of the leaflet drops, according to Pentagon officials. There is concern, however, that the campaign there labeled Euphrates Volcano, lacks sufficient support from Sunni Arabs who dominate the region, Heras said.

"These leaflet drops may be an attempt to convince the local Sunni Arab tribes in these ISIS-controlled villages north of Raqqa that the U.S. is very serious about the Euphrates Volcano campaign succeeding, and that they can expect support in their rebellions, if they have the courage to seize the moment," Heras said.

16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria

Gregory Korte

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.

But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces do not have a combat mission."

Earnest said the promises of "no boots on the ground" first came in the context of removing Syrian President Bashar Assad because of his use of chemical weapons. Since then, Syria has become a haven for Islamic State fighters.

Here's a recap of Obama's no-boots pledge:

Remarks before meeting with Baltic State leaders, Aug. 30, 2013

"In no event are we considering any kind of military action that would involve boots on the ground, that would involve a long-term campaign. But we are looking at the possibility of a limited, narrow act that would help make sure that not only Syria, but others around the world, understand that the international community cares about maintaining this chemical weapons ban and norm. So again, I repeat, we're not considering any open-ended commitment. We're not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach."

Remarks in the Rose Garden, Aug. 31, 2013

"After careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets. This would not be an open-ended intervention. We would not put boots on the ground. Instead, our action would be designed to be limited in duration and scope."

Statement before meeting with congressional leaders, Sept. 3, 2013

"So the key point that I want to emphasize to the American people: The military plan that has been developed by our Joint Chiefs — and that I believe is appropriate — is proportional. It is limited. It does not involve boots on the ground. This is not Iraq, and this is not Afghanistan."

News conference in Stockholm, Sweden, Sept. 4, 2013

"I think America recognizes that, as difficult as it is to take any military action — even one as limited as we're talking about, even one without boots on the ground — that's a sober decision."

News conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sept. 6, 2013

"The question for the American people is, is that responsibility that we'll be willing to bear? And I believe that when you have a limited, proportional strike like this — not Iraq, not putting boots on the ground; not some long, drawn-out affair; not without any risks, but with manageable risks — that we should be willing to bear that responsibility."

Weekly radio address, Sept. 7, 2013

"What we're not talking about is an open-ended intervention. This would not be another Iraq or Afghanistan. There would be no American boots on the ground. Any action we take would be limited, both in time and scope, designed to deter the Syrian Government from gassing its own people again and degrade its ability to do so."

Interview with the PBS Newshour, Sept. 9, 2013

"Tomorrow I'll speak to the American people. I'll explain this is not Iraq; this is not Afghanistan; this is not even Libya. We're not talking about — not boots on the ground. We're not talking about sustained airstrikes. We're talking about a very specific set of strikes to degrade his chemical weapons capabilities in terms of delivery."

Interview with CBS Evening News, Sept. 9, 2013

"What I'm going to try to propose is that we have a very specific objective, a very narrow military option, and one that will not lead into some large-scale invasion of Syria or involvement or boots on the ground; nothing like that. This isn't like Iraq. It's not like Afghanistan. It's not even like Libya. Then hopefully people will recognize why I think this is so important."

Address to the Nation, Sept. 10, 2013

"Many of you have asked, won't this put us on a slippery slope to another war? One man wrote to me that we are 'still recovering from our involvement in Iraq.' A veteran put it more bluntly: 'This nation is sick and tired of war.' My answer is simple: I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria. I will not pursue an open-ended action like Iraq or Afghanistan. I will not pursue a prolonged air campaign like Libya or Kosovo. This would be a targeted strike to achieve a clear objective: deterring the use of chemical weapons and degrading Assad's capabilities."

Interview on Bloomberg View, Feb, 27, 2014

"We are doing everything we can to see how we can do that and how we can resource it. But I've looked at a whole lot of game plans, a whole lot of war plans, a whole bunch of scenarios, and nobody has been able to persuade me that us taking large-scale military action even absent boots on the ground, would actually solve the problem."

News conference in Newport, Wales, Sept. 5, 2014

"With respect to the situation on the ground in Syria, we will not be placing U.S. ground troops to try to control the areas that are part of the conflict inside of Syria. I don't think that's necessary for us to accomplish our goal. We are going to have to find effective partners on the ground to push back against ISIL."

Interview with Meet the Press, Sept. 7, 2014

"(You) cannot, over the long term or even the medium term, deal with this problem by having the United States serially occupy various countries all around the Middle East. We don't have the resources. It puts enormous strains on our military. And at some point, we leave. And then things blow up again. So we've got to have a more sustainable strategy, which means the boots on the ground have to be Iraqi. And and in Syria, the boots on the ground have to be Syrian. ... I will reserve the right to always protect the American people and go after folks who are trying to hurt us wherever they are. But in terms of controlling territory, we're going to have to develop a moderate Sunni opposition that can control territory and that we can work with. The notion that the United States should be putting boots on the ground, I think would be a profound mistake. And I want to be very clear and very explicit about that."

Address to the Nation on Syria, Sept. 10, 2014

"I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground."

News conference in Brisbane, Australia, Nov. 16, 2014

"Yes, there are always circumstances in which the United States might need to deploy U.S. ground troops. If we discovered that ISIL had gotten possession of a nuclear weapon, and we had to run an operation to get it out of their hands, then, yes, you can anticipate that not only would Chairman Dempsey recommend me sending U.S. ground troops to get that weapon out of their hands, but I would order it. So the question just ends up being, what are those circumstances? I'm not going speculate on those. Right now we're moving forward in conjunction with outstanding allies like Australia in training Iraqi security forces to do their job on the ground."

Remarks at the White House, Feb. 11, 2015

"The resolution we've submitted today does not call for the deployment of U.S. ground combat forces to Iraq or Syria. It is not the authorization of another ground war, like Afghanistan or Iraq. ... As I've said before, I'm convinced that the United States should not get dragged back into another prolonged ground war in the Middle East. That's not in our national security interest, and it's not necessary for us to defeat ISIL. Local forces on the ground who know their countries best are best positioned to take the ground fight to ISIL, and that's what they're doing."

Remarks at the Pentagon, July 6, 2015

"There are no current plans to do so. That's not something that we currently discussed. I've always said that I'm going to do what's necessary to protect the homeland. One of the principles that we all agree on, though, and I pressed folks pretty hard because in these conversations with my military advisers I want to make sure I'm getting blunt and unadulterated, uncensored advice. But in every one of the conversations that we've had, the strong consensus is that in order for us to succeed long-term in this fight against ISIL, we have to develop local security forces that can sustain progress. It is not enough for us to simply send in American troops to temporarily set back organizations like ISIL, but to then, as soon as we leave, see that void filled once again with extremists."