Beating the Islamic State. Selecting a New Strategy for Iraq and Syria

[rangerrebew]

Beating the Islamic State
Selecting a New Strategy for Iraq and Syria

by Ben Connable, Natasha Lander, Kimberly Jackson
 
Research Questions

    What new options can be pursued to defeat the Islamic State, stabilize the Middle East, and reestablish a sense of domestic security in the United States and Europe?
    Which of these options might be the most effective, and why?

The U.S.-led strategy to defeat the Islamic State (IS) — a hybrid insurgent-terrorist group that as of mid-2016 controls territory in both Iraq and Syria — has been criticized for a lack of clarity, overemphasis on tactical objectives, and insufficient attention to the underlying causes of the greater civil conflict across both Iraq and Syria. This report assesses the current strategy and presents three options for a new strategy. Each of these options, derived from subject-matter-expert input, represents a broad strategic approach to defeating IS.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1562.html?utm_source=CSIS+All&utm_campaign=053453fe46-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_05_09&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f326fc46b6-053453fe46-169952089

[Fishrrman]

The questions:
"What new options can be pursued to defeat the Islamic State, stabilize the Middle East, and reestablish a sense of domestic security in the United States and Europe?
Which of these options might be the most effective, and why?"

The answers:
NO "options" are going to be effective for anything more than the short-term.

This is because defeating isis WILL NOT "stabilize the Middle East, and reestablish a sense of domestic security in the United States and Europe".

Particularly in Western Europe, the problems will continue to worsen, isis or not.

"isis" is merely "this year's hand that holds the sword" of a greater enemy. Get rid of isis, and in a matter of time, "another hand" will rise up -- just as isis replaced al qaeda.

A story I posted here some time back, I'll repeat it.

After the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, in the fall, I went to the backyard where I had a couple of old apple trees.

The apples were never any good, and each season I'd have to pick them up and toss them all against the fence.

But of course the next season, the bad apples would return and I'd have to do it all over again.

If I wanted to end this cycle, to "rid myself of the bad apples" forever, I realized there was only one thing that would truly accomplish that.

Told you that to tell you this:

isis is but this season's crop of bad apples. Get rid of them, and next season, we'll have to do it all over again.

If we want to be free of them once and for all, it's the "tree" upon which they grow which must be dealt with.

Moral of the story:
I don't pick up apples in my backyard any more. What was it that I did?

Final thought:
So long as outfits like the Rand Organization are populated with bushels of the effete intellectual snobs like those who wrote the article above, we will get nowhere in the worldwide struggle with islam. Hence my oft-repeated question:
Who's winning?