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PERSIAN GULF — Two senior Canadian generals are defending the current strategy for defeating ISIL in Iraq and Syria, which the U.S. military is reviewing following scathing criticism by President Donald Trump.
Brigadier-generals David Anderson and Stephen Kelsey are both based in Baghdad and while Canadian, each holds a key position within the larger international coalition for defeating ISIL.
For the past year, they have watched the fight against ISIL unfold, culminating this week in Iraqi forces launching their long-awaited assault on the extremist group’s last major bastion in the country, west Mosul.
But Trump has previously expressed frustration with the pace of the campaign against ISIL, and has given his defence secretary, retired general James Mattis, until the end of the month to find ways to hasten its defeat.
Anderson and Kelsey say it is ultimately up to the U.S. to decide the course it feels is best, but they believe the existing strategy strikes the right balance between speed and Iraq’s long-term needs.
They say rushing operations before they are ready or having U.S. and coalition troops doing the actual fighting could cause more harm than good, and so they’re hoping that Trump opts to stay the course.
