Obama finally found a strategy to defeat ISIS. And it’s almost certain to involve what he’s already doing. Or what he was forced to do by circumstances.
1. Air strikes on ISIS
2. Some sort of coalition against ISIS involving parts of NATO and the Arab League
3. Islam is a religion of peace
4. Arming and training Iraqi and Kurdish forces
About the only question mark is whether he’ll announce that the US will hit ISIS in Syria. Probably not. Which makes it easy for ISIS to keep any assets or leaders they don’t want bombed in Syria.
All these existing moves will be dressed up as “bold” and “decisive” when they’re really “no brainers” and “belated”. Obama will assure everyone that there will be no boots on the ground, even though there are over 1,000 US troops in Iraq. There will be promises of victory that mean rather little.
The actual plan will involve rolling back ISIS enough that the Iraqi government and whatever coalition it cobbles together will control much of the non-Kurdish parts of the country. Whether Obama will even get that much done is open to question.
The larger problem was that Obama chose to ignore ISIS until it became too much of a presence in the media. What he really wants to do is reduce its newsworthiness and go back to ignoring it again.
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