Officials are promising to fight “shoulder-to-shoulder” with France after Friday’s ISIS attack in Paris, and President Obama suggested some “intensification” of the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but rejected the idea of committing more ground troops to the conflict.
“We are going to continue the strategy that has the best chance of working,” Obama said, suggesting he largely intends to continue the war unaltered, with perhaps some increased airstrikes in the wake of the Paris attack.
White House officials largely rejected the notion of “boots on the ground” in Syria, despite having already announced the first deployments of ground troops into Syria just a week prior. In this regard, there appears to be an effort to keep the escalation of the ground war disconnected from escalation of the air war.
France has suggested their own escalation will also be built around airstrikes, so the administration may also believe that they can make the biggest show of “solidarity” by increasing the number of bombings carried out against ISIS targets.
President Obama and many of our politicians have blamed Syrian president Assad for the rise and success of the caliphate. The argument is that the Daesh hate Assad for what he has done to the Syrian people. That is pure propaganda. Yes, the caliph hates Assad but he does so because he considers Assad to be apostate. For the same reason he hates Assad's political opponents. They are apostate too. Any Muslim who does not accept the authority of the caliph is apostate hence must be killed.
The Caliphate was abolished in 1924.
The scenario is hardly surprising and suggests that Obama realises that the "war on ISIS" is unwinnable. A show will be made for the French gallery and thing will be back to normal by Chriatmas. And if Putin can be dragged even deeper into the Syrian quagmire, so much the better.
"War is the health of the State". Randolph Bourne
Notable is your other featured article " US approves smart bombs to Saudi Arabia", but is not Saudi Arabia supplying ISIS? Then it goes to figure the smart bombs will end up with ISIS. I suppose that is what Obama is calling war "intensification."