---
Yes, present and larger forces do fuel more combat and resentment but reducing the force would also mean putting forces remaining in more jeopardy because of reduced capabilities and that, too, would fuel more aggressive action by the resistance forces.
In the long run it really doesn’t matter what our force strength is because we don’t have enough troops to contain a growing resistance and never will have.
The troop strength debate is a false one because it doesn’t get to the core issue which is how do we pull ourselves out from what is essentially a political war.
Regardless of our troop strength we cannot ever extract ourselves from our present predicament within the context of Neoconservative philosophy of 14 permanent bases in Iraq and the world’s largest embassy to oversee their dreams of reshaping the Middle East.
Washington Dispatch