At a moment of widespread acknowledgment
that the short-lived Islamic State (ISIS) is no longer a reality, and
as ISIS is about to be defeated by the Syrian Army in its last urban
holdout of Abu Kamal City in eastern Syria, the US is signaling an open-ended military presence in Syria. On Monday Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters at
the Pentagon that the US is preparing for a long-term military
commitment in Syria to fight ISIS “as long as they want to fight.”
Mattis indicated that even should ISIS lose all of its territory
there would still be a dangerous insurgency that could morph into an
“ISIS 2.0” which he said the US would seek to prevent. “The enemy hasn’t
declared that they’re done with the area yet, so we’ll keep fighting as
long as they want to fight,” Mattis said. “We’re not just going to walk
away right now before the Geneva process has traction.”
