I get it. So let’s use another example to highlight what this campagn is more likely to look like: Yemen. The US has been assisting the Yemenis for… geez, I don’t know how many years to fight AQAP. No US ground troops are on the front lines, and it’s a long, slow fight that is going to go on for some time. I think the fight against ISIL is going to look at lot like that.
From the White House Chief of Staff today: " We believe that just as we have been at war with al Qaeda since the day we got here, we are at war with ISIL. And what does that mean? That means that we are going to use our unique capabilities in support of others on the ground, other Sunni in Iraq. We’re going to be obviously supporting the Iraqi security forces and in Syria, we’ll be supporting, with air power, the Syrian opposition that’s on the ground now.
[/quote] Link. I think it’s pretty clear what the strategy is.
I think the reason fighters left the FSA is that they didn’t have much hope of winning, not for ideological reasons.
Which is true no matter what. If the US bombs ISIL, Assad will attack the FSA. If the US doesn’t bomb ISIL, Assad will attack the FSA. If the US issues an unconditional surrender and announces that Barack al-Obama is the first Grand Mufti of the United States of Islamic America, then Assad will still attack the FSA.
There definitely is one big part of this whole plan that hasn’t been described: Assad might be happy to let the US and others bomb the snot out of ISIL in those backwaters of al-Raqqa and wherever else Assad doesn’t really care about… but what if he doesn’t? What if he gets worried that air strikes are going to go after his forces at the same time, and decides to expand his rather significant air defense system? Does that mean the US is willing to attack Assad’s forces in order to prosecute the war against ISIL? I truly have no idea what the strategy means for that question, but I think it is very important to get an answer.
Which looks worse: a few beheadings or a couple of years of bombings?
This is why they’re able to get recruits over there, we’re seen as the bad guy by so many Muslims. As long as they’re not bringing it over here…as long as it’s primarily Muslim on Muslim,
we should stay the hell out.
This is why they’re goading us into this war: to be more popular with Muslims in the area they need to show they’re fighting THE GREAT SATAN.
I remember one post interviewing a rebel who had left the war and returned to his family: the reason being that he wasn’t getting paid and couldn’t support his wife and children.
that makes it very tempting for the FSA to try to hit US planes and pass the blame on to the regime. And it also raises the question of how Russia would respond to a direct US war on Syria, and if the USA take out Assad - even if it could - now, that’d just leave a massive power vacuum and who’re going to fill that, and who’re going to protect the Alawite, Christian and Druze communities in Syria if Assad is gone and the Islamist march on. Also it puts the responsibility directly on the USA. If you destroy the current government it’s your responsibility to ensure that it doesn’t lead to chaos and ethnic cleansing, etc. The USA would be forced to put boots on the ground to do that. Good thing I’m not American, I wouldn’t want to carry all that responsibility. And it’s rumoured that your good allies the Kurds just murdered up to 100 Sunnis in northern Syria, including women and children. Time to bomb them.
How many fighters does AQAP have-- a few hundred? ISIL has something like 30,000. ISIL is more like a conventional army, not a reg-tag band of terrorists living in caves. The weird thing is that they actually are the kind of force that our military could take on. Again, not that I want our military to do that, but if you want to beat them, that’s what you should be doing.
I don’t think Assad wants us to go against ISIL. He likes having ISIL around to some extent so that he can claim he’s “fighting terrorism”. But yeah, like I said in the other thread (the one I started), we risk engagement with the Syrian military once we start flying bombing raids into that country.
This. We aren’t going to succeed unless and until an actual achievable goal is defined. Otherwise we’ll just be flailing about without direction accomplishing little. It’s like Afghanistan, where we never had a chance to succeed because we never had an actual goal to succeed at.
The goal in Afghanistan was to make sure it does not become a safe haven for al-Qaeda, or other terror organizations, for plotting and launching attacks against the US. The problem with that is that it’s as much a political as a military problem. We’re pretty good at the latter, but not so good at the former. We drove aQ out of Afghanistan, and then they set up operations elsewhere. And when we leave, it’s unclear that the government and security forces will be any better than the one in Iraq. We saw how “good” the Iraqi Security Forces are, and at least most of them can fucking read!!
Same with Syria. What’s the exist strategy for “ISIL and Assad must go”? We could obliterate them if we wanted to, but then what comes after? A Syrian civil war that will make the Iraq civil war look like a domestic spat.
No, it wasn’t; we put minimal effort into catching Osama bin Laden and he did in fact escape. We went in there only because Bush & Cheney knew they had to be seen as “doing something” about al Qaeda before they could attack Iraq, so we went in there with no real goal beyond “get it over with quick & dirty so we can attack Iraq”. Then we spent years afterwards just aimlessly sitting there and skirmishing.
How many terror attacks against the US “homeland” were planned and carried out form there after the invasion? None? Well, seems like the goal was met whether you liked the means or not.
Well, one of the 1st rules of conducting a war is you do not tell the enemy what it is you will, or will not, do. Nor do you tell your enemy the date that you will withdraw.
Knowing that, one can draw a reasonable conclusion to the question asked by the OP.
a) The same mistake / distraction that the last foray into the gulf was, that is, spectacular advances are made at first but then a general lack of direction takes hold and stagnation occurs, which lets the surviving parts of ISIL dive underground denying the US the permanent PR victory it craves, but at least it has the oil secured. Still, IED’s and clandestine lynchings for years to come. A new big hole to throw your impressionable lives and money into!
b) ISIL runs out of steam the proper way. Figures out by itself that governing is hard, that smart bombs are really accurate and all too plentiful, and that murder only buys so much loyalty. Fragments like A into smaller parties but the successors never recover and eventually get stamped out. The best but least likely scenario, I think.
c) ISIL retreats back into Syria. Assad refuses the help, somebody goes in anyway, then clusterfuck. Who knows after that.
d) It was never about the beheadings, just the oil. What was the question?