With a Hint of Regret, Obama Describes New Kind of Endless Quasi-War
With a Hint of Regret, Obama Describes New Kind of Endless Quasi-War by Greg Jaffe and Michael Birnbaum, Washington Post
President Obama, who had pledged to end America’s wars, described the landscape he was leaving to his successor as a state of quasi-war that could extend for years to come.
Obama, who was speaking Saturday to reporters at the NATO summit here, noted with pride that he has cut the size of the U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan from 180,000 troops to fewer than 15,000.
But U.S. drones and fighter jets are striking targets in seven countries on a regular basis, a span of geography that is virtually unprecedented in American history outside of major wars. U.S. Special Operations forces are still conducting dangerous raids in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria…
Obama also said he will be working in his final months to leave behind “an architecture” for this new kind of military fight that mixes drone strikes with local training and efforts aimed at repairing fractured societies in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Such a position falls short of all-out war, Obama said. Instead, he called it “more of a hybrid approach” necessary to deal with “a different kind of low-grade threat — one that’s not an existential threat but can do real harm and real damage to our societies and creates the kind of fear that can cause division.”…