On Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attributed the attack, which also wounded more than three dozen soldiers, to the “Axis of Resistance,” a term used to describe a loose conglomeration of Iranian-sponsored militias fighting the United States, Israel and the West at large. After the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, this group was rebranded as the “Islamic Resistance of Iraq,” with the express purpose of targeting Americans stationed in the region.
Austin didn’t talk about Tower 22, where about 350 U.S. personnel are stationed, almost all in noncombat roles. These troops work with Jordanian forces, and Tower 22 supports a U.S. garrison with about 200 soldiers called al-Tanf just over the nearby border with Syria. Both U.S. outposts protect a Syrian refugee camp called Rukban, where approximately 8,000 Syrian civilians have been living for years, otherwise cut off from any assistance. There have been more than 160 attacks on U.S. forces in the region since Oct. 7; more than 30 of those targeted Tower 22 or al-Tanf. Sunday’s was the first deadly one.
So why not just bring them all home? In the short term, that would give Iran exactly what it wants: to drive U.S. forces out of the region and dominate a huge swath of territory from Tehran to Beirut. And over the longer term, the United States would be abandoning the mission of Tower 22 and the other U.S. bases there: fighting the Islamic State and protecting civilians.
The Syrian rebel groups who work with U.S. troops to hunt Islamic State terrorists in this area would not be able to operate without U.S. support. On Wednesday, I spoke with Col. Farid Al-Qassem, the commander of one of the United States’ partner forces in Syria. He told me that if U.S. troops left, it would be a disaster.
“The small footprint of these bases is very important. The main mission is cutting off the supply routes for weapons and fighters for ISIS between Iraq, Syria and Lebanon,” he said. “This is the best way to prevent the resurgence of ISIS in this area.”
Tower 22 and al-Tanf are part of a network of small bases that also complicate Iran’s ability to ship weapons and supplies to groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Another benefit is that the Syrian civilians living near the bases are protected from the militias and from the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
“It’s important to bring visibility to the important humanitarian and security work that’s happening in this area,” Al-Qassem told me. “This is a very strategic area, but nobody is paying attention to it.”
The Syrian Emergency Task Force is an American nongovernmental organization that works with the U.S. military and the Syrian rebels to transfer humanitarian aid to Syrian civilians. It depends on Tower 22 as a transit and logistics hub to transfer food, medicine and other basic supplies to Syrian refugees in the Rukban camp, who might otherwise starve.
“Tower 22, al-Tanf and other U.S. bases in Syria are being targeted because of their effectiveness in preventing Iran from achieving its expansionist aims and because they support besieged populations like Rukban,” Mouaz Moustafa, the group’s executive director, told me.
Austin said the Biden team is planning a response targeted at those who attacked the U.S. troops. He said there are no plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria or Jordan at this time. Meanwhile, lawmakers and commentators are criticizing the administration for not protecting U.S. forces operating in an increasingly tense and unstable Middle East. To be sure, more needs to be done to ensure deployed troops are safe and to deter the militias and their Iranian backers.
Keeping small amounts of U.S. troops in strategically important outposts in the Middle East is not the same as fighting a “forever war.” It’s an insurance policy against much worse outcomes. Americans are willing to pay the price of this insurance policy, as long as it does not include the deaths of U.S. troops.
The United States has a tendency of trying to abandon its security responsibilities in the Middle East, only to later reverse itself and overcompensate when the situation deteriorates. The last time the U.S. military cut and ran from the Middle East, Islamic State fighters filled the security vacuum and the United States (and dozens of other countries) had to send thousands of troops back to dislodge them. That endless cycle is a recipe for a real forever war.
The U.S. soldiers who died at Tower 22 were on a noble and necessary assignment — protecting regional and U.S. security — when they were attacked. Now, it’s the responsibility of the rest of us to ensure their sacrifice is not squandered and their vital mission is not abandoned.
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