Gen. Townsend promoted a young officer to first lieutenant on Wednesday -- and he acknowledged to CBS News that U.S. troops won't be leaving Syria any time soon.But will Americans only fight ISIS guerrillas? What about any "Assadist" or Baathist, or any kind of pro-government/pro-Syrian guerrillas? We can't imagine that those will be given a pass if they emerge. Knowing the US they will be demonized and hounded—for defying a foreign military in their own country.
"I think U.S. troops will start leaving Syria when ISIS is defeated," Townsend said.
But will ISIS turn into an insurgency when they've lost all their territory?
"I think that's the next stage of ISIS," Townsend said.
"We call that ISIS 2.0 -- an insurgency, rural. So I think we'll still be here dealing with that problem set for a while."
It looks like the US may be in for another occupation of another Middle Eastern Arab country against native guerrillas. And it looks like Syrians may be in for a lengthy US occupation of the eastern half of their country.
Comment: The reason the US will remain in Syria indefinitely has nothing to do with ISIS, just like its purpose in staying in Iraq and Afghanistan has nothing to do with terrorists. This is about creating vassal states in areas of geopolitical strategic importance. The US just uses terrorists as an excuse to illegally invade and occupy countries that they wish to control. It will attempt to do the same thing in Syria, but unlike Iraq or Afghanistan that's going to fail spectacularly with the presence of the Russian military in Syria.