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The Future of U.S. Intervention in Syria
(Washington Post) David Ignatius - The U.S.-led coalition is accelerating its campaign to destroy the Islamic State's remaining strongholds in Syria. Military and civilian officials who have been closest to U.S.-Syria policy appear convinced that America should maintain a residual presence of special operations forces to continue to train and advise - and also, restrain - the Syrian Kurdish militia that has been America's key partner against the Islamic State. The Syrian Kurdish militia known as the YPG, advised by elite American forces and backed by U.S. air power, has swept across the area east of the Euphrates over the past three years, and in about six weeks is expected to seize the Islamic State's capital of Raqqa. As they advanced, the Kurds recruited Sunni Arab allies into a broader coalition known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. Battlefield success generates its own political momentum and, as the U.S. and the SDF have advanced, a bandwagon effect has developed. Sunni opposition groups now seem eager to fight alongside the Kurdish-led forces, under overall U.S. command. If U.S. military advisers remain in eastern Syria, say U.S. officials, they can curb the Kurds' ambitions for independence, deter the Turks from intervening, and encourage the Sunni opposition to work with all sides.