Trump's Call for a Deadlier Islamic State Push May Hit Limits by Phil Stewart, Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump's call for a military plan to defeat Islamic State, made in an executive order on Saturday, is likely to see the Pentagon revisiting options for a more aggressive use of firepower and American troops.
But U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, doubt the country's military will advocate fundamentally changing a key strategy refined during the Obama administration: relying on local forces to do most of the fighting, and dying, in Syria and Iraq.
"It is going to be very successful," Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office at the White House. A copy of the order was not immediately available but was expected to be released later.
In a briefing with reporters on Saturday, a senior administration official said the order would ask the joint chiefs of staff to submit a plan in 30 days for defeating Islamic State, fulfilling one of Trump's campaign trail pledges.
Trump made defeating Islamic State - which has claimed responsibility for several attacks on American soil and is frustrating U.S. military operations across the Middle East - one of the key themes in his campaign. But he avoided talking about specifics of any plan to combat the radical group.
Any shifts by the U.S. military would have broad repercussions for U.S. relationships across the Middle East, which were strained by former President Barack Obama's effort throughout his administration to limit U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Syria...
Comments
The most important influence President Trump's policy might change on the Iraqi and Syrian battlefields is a realignment that does not seek as an ultimate end the removal of Assad and the frustration of Iranian aspirations to establish a land corridor from Tehran through Baghdad and Damsacus to Beirut.
Obama was content to to first target Assad, failing to hold the lines in the sand, he settled for his horrific Iraq policy and appeasement of Iranian interests that were also diametrically opposed to his original purpose to have Assad removed.
The bet on the Arab Spring evolving into something more than an Islamic Revolutionary caused further embrassed Obama's leadership.
The Russians are the power in the region now. Flying missions from Iran sometimes with Iranian fighters of US design top cover for TU-22s.
The Russians have revitalized the Syrian army on several levels from in depth anti aircraft defense to equipping and training the 4th Armored Division with T 99s.
Obama set obstacles to US forces remaining because Senators Biden and Obama had problems with Maliki a Shiite, Iraqi nationalist and perhaps encouraged greater Iranian inclusion a result of long term liberal desire to reset the American clock and make nice nice with the Ayatollahs.
President Trump is picking up the pieces of a failed foreign policy that was a total disaster the effects of which are being felt in protests today by die hards still pressing this agenda.
Whether by design or incompetence Obama was in for a penny in for a pound and the failure has fractured Syria making half the population homeless, and splitting the country into two regional war zones with two separate wars being fought. One by Assad's forces run from Moscow deploying Iranian lead Shiite Foreign Legions, HezbAllah and other declared enemies of the USA, in support of a largely rebuilt Syrian Army under the aegis of the Russians, that has achieved victory's in Aleppo. Versus the fractured leadership of Obama's coalition, with divisions between the Turkish role and the Kurd's, the on going attempt to develop a truly successful Iraqi army.
Trump may prove to be a better negotiator with Russia and find a means to work with Russia, exclude Iran, and crush the Islamic State between Syrian and Iraqi Armies. In the best interest of all.