Staff Writer
1,500 American soldiers are to be sent to Iraq to serve as security and advisory forces for the Iraqi Army in order to fight Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and Salisbury University students have mixed opinions on the decision.
The bulk of these forces would be fighting in the Anbar province of Iraq which borders Syria and Saudi Arabia. This expands the current mission of U.S. personnel from the current focus in Baghdad and Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region.
“I agree with the decision,” SU student Sam Russel said. “It kind of has to be done.”
The U.S. has been currently pursuing an airstrike campaign against the Muslim rebels in addition to advisory roles on the ground.
“Assuming it’s the right course of action, (the president will) just have to send more and more,” student Ben Sonenberg said, “and we’ll be in another mess.”
The strikes have deterred, but not reversed, the ISIS offensive in Iraq and the Iraqi army has been struggling to fight against Islamic rebels.
The Anbar province bordering Syria is going to be another major center of U.S. advisory and security operations. The Anbar province was heavily contested during the Iraq War where U.S. forces fought a protracted battle in the city of Fallujah.
President Barack Obama has also asked for an additional $5 billion to fight the Islamic State rebels, with $1.6 billion of that going to arming and training the Iraqi armed forces.
Officially, the 3,000 additional U.S. ground troops would not be engaged in direct combat operations against the jihadists.
Student Katie Nizich is concerned about the troops themselves.
“A lot of them were already deployed and have scars from being there,” she said.
The Islamic State jihadists, while fighting the Iraqi government, are simultaneously one of many rebel groups fighting the Syrian government as the country is in a civil war. The government of Syria is currently considered an enemy of the U.S., as well.
Congress officially authorized aid to the Syrian rebels in September, and a New York Times article from January revealed that the CIA had been arming and training Syrian rebels against the Assad regime in Jordan.
ISIS, along with fighting governments has targeted Iraqi minorities including Christians who have mostly been displaced by radical Muslims and who were given the choice to convert or face a tax to the Islamic State.
Significant numbers of Christians were killed or displaced after the capture of the city of Mosul, where many Christians lived.
The London Telegraph published a leaked video revealing that the radical fighters are buying and selling sex slaves from the Yazidis, a religious minority also.
Journalists have been another target of the jihadists, as 12 Iraqi journalists as well as several western journalists, including the deceased James Foley and Steven Sotloff, have been taken and executed by Islamic State fighters.
The news of renewed U.S. involvement in Iraq comes after a major defeat for the President and his party in the mid-term elections.
A recent Gallup poll showed that President Obama has a 54 percent disapproval rating, while a poll taken by Defense One revealed that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has a 26 percent approval rating among U.S. national security professionals and troops.
However, even with the major victory for Republicans in the midterm elections, Congress’ approval rating sat at 14 percent just a month before the elections, according the Gallup.
Even with the overwhelming disapproval of political leaders, American approval for military operations against the Islamic State is 60 percent according to a September poll.