According to the US State Department, the major losses inflicted to ISIS and al-Qaeda over the past year has led both to adapt, dispersing into the surrounding areas and becoming far less vulnerable to US military attacks.
Particularly with ISIS, this was predicted by many analysts as the offensives built up. ISIS had large defensive forces in major cities, and with the loss of all those cities, much of the force has dispersed into the desert, where there simply aren’t major targets.
The State Department’s annual report showed no sign that they had any plan on what to do about this entirely predictable turn of events. Instead, they emphasized the gains made before the tactics changed.
While terror attacks are on the decline since then, the report wasn’t clear if that was good news or not, saying that the terror threats appear to be increasingly complex going forward. That means these groups are concluded to remain a “significant threat,” and there’s little the military can do about it.
If course they are. With the Westrrn government help — money, arms, telecom, fuel, food. In Al-Tanf, soecifically.
There is no such thing as autonomous and indrpendent terrorist organization. No such thing. They have no economy nor their own currency — yet, they have money. They have no weapons factories, but they have all sorts of weapons. They produce no food — yet ghey are fed. Have no satelites, produce no technology — yet have it all. No car factories, no energy production. Now that they do not control any territory where they could steal other people’s property, where are all the goodies coming from?
From Western countries and Israel -/ and their loyal stooges.
If we demand death penalty by public hanging for all individuals in government and private sector that engage in supplying terrorists — including clerks that write purchase orders — there would be no more terrorists. As it stands, poverty and war displacement created pools of young people ready to be recfuited for peanuts. And all we really do is create mayham, insuring that countries cannot recover, cannot economically develop, cannot build infrasrtucture, cannot travel freely and trade freely. Our obsession with Middle East will cost us. Iran will be our Moby Dick.
I think it’s clear enough that the US currently has a definite plan: harassment with no goal in sight. That includes ISIS which only worries the US if it’s big enough. Currently they gladly tolerate it. The suggestion that it’s just harder to fight them implies something which is the opposite of the reality. If ISIS controls oil sources Syria needs then the US is in favor of that. If ISIS blocks reopening of road connections with other countries that would aid economical recovery, then the US is in favor of that. In the current state of affairs, and indeed for more than a year now, the US will help ISIS rather than fight it.
“this entirely predictable turn of events”
That is a key observation. The enemy always gets a say. War is a dynamic, of two (or more) sides, not us acting on an inanimate object.
“The enemy gets to vote on the outcome.” Sun Tzu, written roughly in the period 771 to 476 BC.
This ought not to be news to anyone, but somehow seems to be.