If Trump chooses to send in thousands of U.S. troops, he would likely find support from some of his biggest critics in the Republican Party. In late 2015, Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who have never shied away from breaking ranks with Trump on a host of issues, urged dispatching up to 20,000 troops to act as advisors to help turn the tide against the Islamic State.
U.S. commanders and diplomats tend to be wary of any proposal for a large American contingent swooping in to spearhead a ground battle, because it would require permanent bases, with a foreign occupation force again policing Arab cities and towns. The eight-year U.S. occupation of Iraq proved an unmitigated disaster, fueling an insurgency that eventually gave rise to the Islamic State. American military commanders and diplomats came away vowing to avoid a repeat of that experience.
Without a large U.S. combat force, rolling back Islamic State militants from territory they seized in 2014 has proven to be a slog. American warplanes dropped 24,000 bombs in Iraq and Syria in 2016, while special operations forces bolstered Iraqi troops and Kurdish fighters that often lack the equipment or the training to move at a fast pace.
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