When it comes to Syria, “no boots on the ground” was something of a mantra for Barack Obama. He has repeated it dozens of times, but not anymore. On Monday, he told the world at least 250 US troops would soon be fighting inside the country. With American military members now slowly streaming into multiple countries in the Middle East, we’re entrenched in yet another war and it’s unclear how we’ll get out of it.

To much less fanfare last week, the White House also reportedly loosened the military engagement rules in Syria, so that US servicemen are allowed more leeway to kill civilians as collateral damage in pursuit of Isis. Rightwing Republicans have been clamoring for this policy change for months, despite the risk of it completely backfiring on the US and creating many more terrorists than it kills. At the time, Democrats criticized the likes of Ted Cruz for demanding such a policy. Now there is near silence as the Obama administration has made it a reality.

As he’s broken his promise involving ground troops in Syria, can we expect the same about-face in Libya? “There’s no plan for ground troops in Libya,” Obama said at a press conference in London during his European tour last week. He added: “I don’t think that’s necessary. I don’t think it would be welcomed by this new government. It would send the wrong signal.”

One can imagine it’s only a matter of time before that statement is proven false. Libya is now engulfed in chaos and the number of Isis members is skyrocketing, largely thanks to the US and allies bombing the country and overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi five years ago. There are already drones flying over the country and special forces have already been in and out in the past year to conduct special forces missions. You can picture administration members soon arguing: we must invade the country to save it from the last time we bombed it.

It’s more or less the same story everywhere. The Iraq war was supposed to be over at the end of 2011, yet US troops have been steadily streaming back into the country for over a year. According to the Obama administration, the Afghanistan war ended in December 2014. Yet airstrikes are still prevalent, thousands of US troops remain and the Taliban is as strong as ever.

We weren’t supposed to have boots on the ground in Syria. Now hundreds are headed to the country, with no telling how many more will be there by year’s end or what other countries they’ll be in next. In fact, US troops were already on the ground in Syria long before this week. The Pentagon quietly sent a “specialized expeditionary targeting force” that has been conducting ground operations against Isis in Iraq and Syria for months. There was no presidential announcement when this Orwellian-sounding force was launched, just as there was no congressional debate when the Isis war started almost a year and a half ago now.

Sadly, it’s only going to get worse. Obama is reluctant to engage in a public discussion about the US’s military involvement in the Middle East. Yet it seems comfortable to fight wars in at least three different countries at once, while also assisting Saudi Arabia in fighting a fourth (which, by the way, is disturbingly strengthening al-Qaida along the way while much of the media ignores it).



Obama’s defense department is publicly agitating for a more militaristic stance against Isis, and as the president well knows, both parties’ candidates to succeed him are much more hawkish than he is – including Hillary Clinton, the presumptive favorite, who, as the New York Times magazine detailed this week, is more militaristic than the rest of the Democratic party and many in the Republican party.

No one doubts that the destructive and complex situation Syria is certainly a tragedy, but there’s no proof that adding more US guns and troops to the situation will make it any better, and history tells us it will only make it worse. Unfortunately, recent history seems to be the last thing our leaders take heed of in times like these.