This Is Not Our War by Lieutenant General Bernard E. Trainor (USMC Ret.), Washington Post
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his band of Islamic State zealots received international attention for their brutality and lightning sweep across Iraq, but the United States should know better than to respond with a clarion call to battle. We have already been burned trying to solve the Rubik’s cube of the Middle East. U.S. actions in the region should remain calculating, patient — and detached.
The Islamic State presents a problem to be managed, not a war to be won. Much of what it occupies in Syria and Iraq is useless desert. The situation is stabilizing, largely because of limited U.S. airstrikes, and the immediate crisis is over. The Iraqi Kurds have stiffened their defenses, and Shiites backed by Iran are defending Baghdad. Even Anbar Province’s Sunni tribes pose a problem for the interlopers.
The Islamic State blitzkrieg can be seen as the latest iteration of the struggle for ascendancy by radical Muslims, but at the core it is a local matter, and brutality is unfortunately part of the package…
Comments
Concur...arm/train/advise the Kurds & what elements of the Iraqi forces are worth the time & effort to arm (forget training Iraqis...waste of resources), contain the threat regionally/politically, & let Mideast forces handle a Mideast problem. Only use surgical air/drone strikes, as they are highly ineffectual towards an irregular force that can easily disperse, & utilize SOF elements to target the snakes head, tail & foreign recruits IOT destroy their will to fight.