Obama's War on The Islamic State: The Perfection of Limited War

Obama is essentially doing what Johnson couldn't in Vietnam: prop up and/or utilize friendly governments/groups to eliminate an enemy with minimal allocation of American military power.

And despite my initial reservations, when the Generals said it could take a while for the plan to work, it turns out they were right. But they were also right it would eventually work.

You simply can't expect the militias and 5th rate armies of the Arab world to blitz through a country as large as the Islamic State like the US military can, as they did in Iraq. They don't have the logistics, they don't have the weaponry, they don't have the transport and they don't, frankly, have the skill. But the US DOES, and with a robust support in those areas from a foreign, competent military (like the US), you can effectively use those groups like proxy armies - commanded and supplied by Americans, who know how to do that, backed with US aircraft and commandos, which can do things the technology and skill of the domestic armies and militias won't allow for, and leave everything else - the frontline ground campaign - to the local forces. It'll take longer with them doing it, but you can avoid the losses involved if the US military were to do it directly. It's selfish, but also more palatable to the voting public - and, frankly, it's the local governments' job to fix this. We're only here because they can't do it alone.

Iraq is kind of a cluster (*)(*)(*)(*). The US is simultaneously trying to keep Iran out (which is impossible, given it's right next door and 80% of the country is Shia) and utilize Iranian-backed forces to fight the IS. The Iraqi Army is shaky in performance - they seem to only be able to do anything with overwhelming force (thousands of troops vs 900 IS in al-Fallujah, for example). However, the IS in Iraq are still losing. Where they can get away with it (ie not rouse the local Arabs against them) the Americans get the Peshmerga to attack the IS, and they always win, and with far fewer men than the Army. Fallujah will be taken soon, which simply leaves the reduction of the remaining IS in Iraq to a pocket in Mosul, which can then be blasted into oblivion. They'll still have to root them out of the buildings Battle of Berlin style, but they WILL lose - already, Iraqi forces are sweeping through the west of Iraq cleaning up the border - they've cleared up to the crossing with Jordan and the southern Syrian one, it's likely they'll sweep up that lonely road north and cut the two remaining Syrian border crossings, completely isolating the IS forces in Iraq. Iraq will take longer than Syria to clean up but it is inevitable.

The SDF forces in Syria are strong enough now that they are launching a 3 pronged attack: 1 prong towards al-Raqqa, the capital; 1 towards al-Tabqa, to cut the only IS supply route between its Turkish smuggling routes and the rest (read: vast majority) of the Islamic State. If they get al-Tabqa (which is heavily fortified, mind you, and requires crossing a dam), the IS will wither on a vine, only the forces west of there receiving any supplies. The 3rd is towards Manjib, very close to the border; though it may not completely cut the IS supply route at its source unless they are able to keep advancing west from there (or the Syrian Army decides it's going to take back al-Bab) that prong will at least draw most of any new IS supplies and reinforcements to them and keep the supplies heading East to a minimum.

Indeed, the strategy is a sound one, if I'm reading it right: rebel attacks from the west and SDF attacks form the East on the northern portion of the IS will draw its forces and reduce the amount of materiel and troops that are diverted to the rest of the country. With northern Syria a manpower and supply sink, the prongs going to al-Tabqa and al-Raqqa will have an easier time reducing the defences. When al-Tabqa is taken, most of the Islamic State will be cut off from supplies and wither on the vine, doomed. Once they rest of it is thusly mopped up, they can destroy the remaining jihadists in the north.

That's assuming the rumours that the Turks will invade the northern Islamic State are false. If they do that, the end will come even faster, as not only will their supplies be gone but a great bulk of their forces will be annihilated.

It's taking a while but I have to give Obama credit: destroying an entire jihadist state with 30000 men with single-digit American deaths, while his predecessor's attempt to destroy a few hundred guys cost over 2300 troops killed and took 13 years of fighting mostly against nationalist militia that weren't the real target?

Not bad.

Not bad at all.

 

Obama supports the Islamic state.He props it up,even.

 

You must be Russian.

 

Infestation of the microscopic pladula can be cured. It's tough, but don't count yourself out just yet.

 

'The big words hurts muh brainz...'

 

I am Crackeran.
Get real for once.
His actions have made ISIS possible.He called them the "JV team"
They look pretty varsity-level to me.
Obama's actions brought about the "Arab Spring"
His dad was/is a Muslim..or at least who they claim his dad is.
Some people say his real dad is a black communist named Frank Marshall Davis.
He clearly is a Muslim sympathizer.

 

Obama has no plan in the ME.

He does just enough to claim he is doing something but there is no end goal.

 

Yeah, ISIS is gradually losing, thanks to U.S. airstrikes, thousands of them.

But it was Obama's and Hillary Clinton's Syria policy that opened the door to the rise of ISIS. That policy has been an abysmal failure, and it should have been foreseen. Those two had a huge hand in creating the ISIS problem in the first place, so I am not quite so willing to congratulate the president on his handling of the war against ISIS.

 

The Islamic State is the evolution of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein was a Ba'athist and an enemy of al-Qaeda. Had Bush not toppled him, al-Qaeda would never have gone there, and there would be no Islamic State.

 

I am well aware of all of that.

So then why, with a stunning lack of foresight, did Obama and Clinton destroy Libya? And then, having learned nothing from that debacle and the history in Iraq you mentioned, why did they arm and fund the attempted violent overthrow of the Syrian government?

I am just a regular American citizen who pays attention, and I knew at the start of the Libyan war that this was a mistake. I also knew that intervening in the Syrian civil war was going to be a huge mistake. If a regular guy like me knew those things, why didn't they?

The Iraqi government is in no small part responsible for the rise of ISIS as well, but the catalyst was the destabilization of Syria which was the policy undertaken by Obama and Clinton. It was in the vacuum of governance in Syria that ISIS consolidated its military strength, making it possible for them to sweep into Iraq.

Yes, I am glad that ISIS is being defeated, and yes, I am glad that it is local forces (mostly) who are fighting them on the ground. I am glad that our casualties are few this time.

But before we go back-slapping Obama for his defeat of ISIS, a little reality is in order.