Discussion for article #243080
Good luck, dude! The Arab states have been predictably useless, having slunk off early on, and let’s face it, the Europeans are like Salah in “Raiders”: “You go first!”
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Looking for help from Arab allies? Why doesn’t Obama start talking about how we’re at war with Islam, that should do the trick.
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It won’t take troops on the ground to cut off their finances from oil sales. Just cooperation. In the mean time there are plenty of IS operatives hiding out that need to be tracked down. Again, cooperation with intelligence sources will reduce the number of soft target attacks.
In particular the U.S. politicians need to decide if it is more important to squelch IS or bicker about the other side. Cooperate and exterminate.
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I just wonder if the attack on Paris would be garnering so much coverage if this had happened in a non-election year.
According to an op-ed in today’s NYT, the Saudis have become so obsessed with Iran that they will never be willing to do anything unless it can hurt Iran. So they have funded ISIS, started the wahabbist schools in Europe (notably a couple of decades ago in Molenbeek, Belgium, whence our current terrorist-Euro borns were educated…)
So no help from the Saudis then. What good are they as “our allies”???
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This story “Pentagon Pressing Allies For More Help Against Islamic State” is intended to preempt President Hollande going to Washington and asking Obama to put US troops on the ground in Syria.
We’ve been acting like the world’s police while other western countries sat on the sidelines criticizing us for far too long.
The politically expedient thing to do would be to say “we’ll fix it” again.
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Buy more F-35s
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They’ve changed the ROE and started bombing IS oil trucks. Soon they won’t be able to find drivers and life will become very difficult in the IS controlled areas.
“Because there is no choice. ISIS has the diesel, the oil. Last time, a little bit before Ramadan, the rebels closed ISIS’s crossing.” ISIS responded by turning off the tap. “The price of oil in Syria went up. The bakeries stopped because there was no diesel. The cars, the hospitals, everything shut down.”
At this point, I think the Saudis are engaged in activities against our national interest more than even Iran. And that’s saying something.
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But the officials acknowledge that it will be difficult to get more from budget-strapped countries already involved elsewhere in the world.
Um, who does that sound like, to you?
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Sad, sad article.
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Great link. A-10s and AC-130s cooperating. Nice.
And, until recently, having their economies thrive while we struggle.
Serious question: why is Israel not considered for such a coalition attack against Daesh?
Israel is a de facto regional power player whose defense resources are richly replenished every year with US aid. Daesh expansion in territory and influence threatens Israel (so much so, that the Netanyahu government now discusses with Hamas ways to counter Daesh threats to them both). Israeli aircraft can reach Daesh targets from home bases. At the very least, the possibility of Israeli ground forces on Daesh-controlled Arab lands should spur certain Sunni regimes to rethink their own non-participation in a ground war with Daesh to forestall Israeli intervention.
Israel should also consider that the on-going military crisis will continue to displace many more refugees from the fighting, and the on-going regional climate crisis will eventually displace the millions of presently encamped refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon into comparatively well-watered Israel/Palestine.
Replace the A-10 with the F-35: that’s frightening, not sad!