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As I noted yesterday, the Obama administration has reportedly abandoned plans to keep a significant U.S. troop presence in Iraq, and will reduce force levels in the country to 160 active-duty soldiers attached to the U.S. embassy at the end of this year.

To put this in perspective, according to the Department of Defense, as of June 2011, the United States has 207,674 troops deployed abroad, including 19 countries/territories where the United States has more than 160 troops today. Yet we can only muster 160 for Iraq. Consider:

In Europe the United States currently has 81,284 troops deployed, including nine countries where our troop totals exceed 160:

•         Belgium (1,234)

•         Germany (54,198)

•         Greece (378)

•         Italy (10,771)

•         Netherlands (433)

•         Portugal (731)

•         Spain (1,483)

•         Turkey (1,511)

•         United Kingdom (9,436)

In East Asia and the Pacific the United States has more than 53,920 troops deployed, including four countries with more than 160:

•         Australia (178)

•         Japan (40,178)

•         Philippines (182)

•         Thailand (162)

•         Korea (figures not listed, but in the tens of thousands)

In Africa, the Near East, and South Asia (not including Afghanistan and Iraq) the U.S. has 9,082 troops deployed, including five nations with more than 160 troops.

•         Bahrain (1,894)

•         Diego Garcia (U.K.) (286)

•         Egypt (273)

•         Qatar (678)

•         Saudi Arabia (435)

•         Djibouti (334)

The United States also has 1,911 U.S. forces deployed in the Western Hemisphere, including two countries with forces above 160:

•         Honduras (358)

•         Cuba (Guantanamo Bay) (881)

We even have 164 troops deployed in the territory of the former Soviet Union.

There are also several countries that fall just short of 160, including:

•         Canada (131)

•         Greenland (135)

•         Singapore (157)

•         United Arab Emirates (140)

Heck, President Obama has just deployed 100 U.S. special operations forces to Uganda, to serve as advisers in that country’s fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Bottom line: In almost every nation where the United States defeated tyrannical regimes in the 20th century—Germany, Japan, Italy, and South Korea—we have kept tens of thousands of U.S. forces on the ground for decades after major combat ended to serve as guarantors of stability. Our robust troop presence has provided a security umbrella that allowed these former adversaries in war to become democratic allies in the cause of peace.

Yet in Iraq today—a nation whose democracy is threatened by hostile forces from al Qaeda to a looming Iran—we will leave behind just 160 troops, fewer than half the forces we currently have deployed in Honduras.

That is not just pathetic—it is dangerously misguided.

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