Inside the War Against Islamic State by Joseph Rago, Wall Street Journal
Some six months ago, the Islamic State terrorist army poured south from Syria through Iraq’s Tigris and Euphrates valleys, conquering multiple cities including Mosul and the border city of al Qaim. Iraqi army regulars disintegrated, the offensive carved out a rump state controlling somewhere between a quarter and one-third of Iraq’s sovereign territory, and mass executions, repression and videotaped beheadings followed.
Anticipating a strike on Baghdad and the potential fall of the capital, the U.S. Embassy evacuated 1,500 civilians. At the time, one measure of strategic neglect is that the U.S. was flying only a single surveillance sortie a month over Iraq, following the withdrawal of the last American troops in 2011. Saudi Arabia or Jordan were feared to be the next Islamic State targets.
Those calamities were interrupted, and now the first beginnings of a comeback may be emerging against the disorder…