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US Will Be In the Middle East For 'Many, Many, Many Years' and America is Up to Five Months Away From Training Any Syrian Rebels, Warns Pentagon
The Pentagon’s top spokesman warned on Wednesday that long-term ‘generational’ conflicts in the Middle East will require the United States to have a military presence there ‘for many, many, many years.’
And despite a $500 million commitment from Congress to ‘train and equip’ moderate Syrian rebels against the ISIS terror army, the Defense Department is mired in planning, still as many as five months away from arming anyone.
Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Defense Department’s press secretary, made the statements during a press briefing about America’s efforts to combat the ISIS terror army in Iraq and Syria.
‘Nobody’s under any illusion that we’re not going to have to maintain our focus, energy and resources in the Middle East for many, many, many years to come,’ he said.
‘We’ve learned that this is a generational issue,’ Kirby added, speaking of the sectarian war pitting Muslim sects against each other.
‘None of these problems are going to be solved overnight, or quickly.’
The admission that a long-term U.S. military commitment is in the offing will likely embolden war hawks in Congress and anger political allies of President Barack
Obama, who is struggling to maintain his dovish image going into the November midterm elections.
Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, shortly after taking office.
He has been insistent that American ‘boots on the ground’ won’t return to Iraq, a war-torn country that had a significant U.S. military presence until Obama withdrew all troops at the end of 2011.
Kirby reiterated Wednesday that ‘there will not be a return of U.S. ground forces in a combat role in this fight, in Iraq or Syria. That has been made very clear.’
The emphasis, he said, is on ‘trying to get a moderate opposition trained and equipped.’
Most estimates put the fighting numbers of ISIS, the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, at 31,000. At best, defense experts project that the U.S. can train 5,000 opposition soldiers.
And as ISIS comes dangerously close to seizing the key Syrian town of Kobane near the Turkish border, Kirby conceded that that effort won’t start until months of planning are completed.
‘There’s been no vetting started yet and no recruiting at this point,’ he said, referring to the Syrian rebels whom the U.S. hopes to arm.
‘We are in the very early stages right now of trying to develop the procedures and protocols within which we would do that.’
Kirby also said the U.S. has no plan to launch a humanitarian relief effort in or near Kobane.
‘We should all be steeling ourselves for reality,’ he said, suggesting that Kobane and other towns will fall to ISIS.
Kirby noted that the U.S. is working closely with Saudi Arabia, which has agreed to host a training facility.
That relationship, as Kirby described it, is still mired in bureaucracy and drawing-board efforts, and will consume ‘three to five months before we can even get through that process.’
‘That’s before you even start doing any of the training. So this is going to be a long-term effort.’
American leaders are ‘sizing up the facility, getting a look at the infrastructure, and sort of figuring out the architecture within which the training would actually occur,’ Kirby said.
The U.S. hopes – eventually, he said – to set up ‘a viable, sustainable, verifiable program to properly recruit and vet these opposition members.’
That effort, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said a few hours later,’is a key component for our strategy and will be critical to our success.’
Training Syrian rebels, he told reporters during his daily briefing, ‘will have a pretty dramatic impact on the conditions on the battlefield.’
But at present, he admitted, ‘our capabilities are still powerful, but they’re limited.’
David Martosko
Daily Mail