Preventative War and Proxy Conflict: Lessons from the Counter ISIS Campaign, David Sterman

 In 2011, the Obama administration withdrew American forces from Iraq, celebrating the withdrawal as the end of the war. Fewer than three years later the same administration returned the U.S. military to Iraq to wage war on ISIS and then extended the war into Syria. David Sterman, a senior policy analyst at New America, spoke on the rationales underlying the return to war, the role of preventive war logic in the decision, how larger regional proxy conflicts shaped the counter-ISIS war, and the lessons for ending America's endless wars as the Trump administration withdraws American forces from parts of Syria.