The US Strategy Against the Islamic State Must be Retooled. Here’s How. By Max Boot, Washington Post
Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This commentary was adapted from a CFR Policy Innovation Memo.
President Obama’s strategy in Syria and Iraq is not working. The president is hoping that limited airstrikes, combined with U.S. support for local proxies, will “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State. But while U.S. actions may have blunted the Islamic State’s expansion, they have not shaken the terrorist group’s control of an area the size of Britain. If the president is serious about dealing with the Islamic State, he will need to increase America’s commitment well beyond his recent decision to deploy 1,500 more advisers.
What will it take to achieve the president’s objective? …
Comments
A counter argument to Max's neocon flavored advice, advice that has consistently proven to be less than helpful.
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/11/give_max_the_boot_military_…
Excerpts
"His theory, and the theory of many so-called “neo” conservatives in this regard, is that Assad is an evil man and should therefore be removed from power because of his evilness.
That was the reasoning Boot and his fellow neocons invoked when they were urging that the U.S. help overthrow Moammar Gadhafi in Libya and before him Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
"Bacevich said Boot is typical of the so-called “neo” conservatives whose views till hold sway inside the Beltway despite 13 years of abject failure."
“I am hard-pressed to think of a crisis in the Islamic world where Max Boot did not say the answer to this problem is armed intervention by the United States,” Bacevich said. “He is somebody who passionately believes, despite all evidence to the contrary, that more force will produce the desired result.”