Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the former CENTCOM commander, is dead wrong....
Daniel DePetris@DanDePetris
14 views
Feb 15, 2024
~2 min read
Advertisement
1
Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the former CENTCOM commander, is dead wrong. Here’s why. 🧵
2
First off, just because Iran may want something doesn’t necessarily mean the U.S. should do the exact opposite—particularly when the status quo is increasingly costly for U.S. forces who are essentially sitting ducks. Don’t give Iran a veto over U.S.foreign policy.
3
Second, if your goal is to kill every lunatic who calls himself an ISIS member, then you might as well be honest about what you’re proposing: an enduring, perpetual U.S. presence in Syria. Why? Because ISIS remnants will always be around.
4
Third, the U.S. has a bad habit of assuming that all terrorism is the same. It isn’t. The U.S. should be concerned about attacks on the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests overseas. I’m not too worried about unsophisticated attacks on checkpoints in the middle of the desert. We need to prioritize.
Plus, let’s stop pretending everything is going to fall apart when 900 U.S. troops leave. ISIS has no friends and many, many enemies. Those enemies have a self-interest in continuing to fight the group whether the U.S. is in Syria or not.
Plus, let’s stop pretending everything is going to fall apart when 900 U.S. troops leave. ISIS has no friends and many, many enemies. Those enemies have a self-interest in continuing to fight the group whether the U.S. is in Syria or not.
5
Fourth, withdrawal is not synonymous with weakness—and frankly it’s dangerous to equate the two. Withdrawal is actually an example of strength and an acknowledgment that the U.S. has succeeded in what it set out to do: kill the ISIS territorial caliphate. Period.
6
Fifth, either McKenzie is living under a rock or doesn’t understand what deterrence means. We aren’t deterring anything with these airstrikes. The rocket and drone attacks keep on coming. So this is a throwaway line that means nothing. Recent events have overtaken it.
7
Here’s McKenzie’s op-ed. nytimes.com/2024/02/14/opi…
8
For those who propose to keep troops in Iraq and Syria for the long-term, I have a few questions: (1) what exactly are your goals and just as importantly, (2) are those goals attainable? If they aren’t, then what are we doing?