Sending more US troops to Iraq will strengthen ISIL: Analyst

The history of US military involvement in Iraq has led to increasing anti-American sentiment in the region and laid the foundation for the rise of terrorist groups like ISIL, according to a writer and professor in Binghamton, New York.

“The US has to disentangle itself from Iraq instead of fomenting more opposition by sending in troops,” said James Petras, a retired professor of sociology at Binghamton University.

His comments follow the Obama administration’s decision to send an additional 450 military personnel to Iraq to support Iraqi security forces battling ISIL militants.

US General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that the Pentagon is considering establishing additional military bases in Iraq.

The top general said a new military base, being established in Anbar Province, could be a model for more such US military hubs across Iraq.

However, recent setbacks in Iraq and Syria have raised serious doubts about President Barack Obama’s strategy against the terrorists.

“The problem is not the lack of US troops; the problem is the history of US military involvement in Iraq which caused over 1 million deaths and uprooted millions of people,” Petras told Press TV on Monday.

“ISIS was able to capitalize on this discontent,” he said, using another acronym for the terrorist group. “Sending in more US military officials to prop-up the [Iraqi] government is not going to weaken ISIS, it’s going to strengthen it.”

At the G7 summit in Germany earlier in the week, Obama said that his administration does not yet have “a complete strategy” against the ISIL terrorists.

Obama’s admission came nearly 10 months after he ordered an open-ended military air campaign against the Takfiri group.

“The fact that Obama doesn’t have an overall strategy is because the strategy that they’ve used for the last decade and a half hasn’t worked and simply making it more extensive and deepening the US presence is not a new strategy, but a continuation of a failed, past strategy,” Petras noted.

The United States has spent more than $2.7 billion on war on ISIL, averaging more than $9 million a day, according to the Pentagon.

AHT/HRJ

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