GOP presidential candidates assail Obama's ISIS plan, but their ideas sound similar

[jpak]

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-11162015-htmlstory.html

From the intensity of their rhetoric, the candidates seeking to replace President Obama might sound like they have policies for combating the Islamic State militants that are dramatically different from his. So far, they don't.

At a news conference Monday, Obama made clear that in the aftermath of the Paris attacks that Islamic State claimed to mastermind, he intends to stick with his plans.

“The strategy that we are putting forward is the strategy that ultimately is going to work,” he said, speaking at the end of an international summit here. Though he repeated his pledge to “intensify” U.S. efforts, he rejected the idea that the U.S. should take dramatic new actions in the wake of the Paris attacks just to “look tough.”

<snip>

In effect, despite much heated language, the candidates in both parties have been arguing that they would pursue the same approach as Obama, but would do it better. Few, if any, envision a quick solution, meaning that regardless of who wins the next election, the likelihood is that Islamic State will still control a large swath of territory in the Euphrates River valley, stretching from eastern Syria into western Iraq, well into the next president’s tenure.

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[TwilightGardener]

1. They're bankrupt on ideas. That said, I myself feel that Obama kind of let the

ISIS war go limp for a while, at least in terms of airstrikes, strikes on oil facilities, etc. He's trying to step it up now, I guess in response to criticism, and he's also trying to have it both ways in terms of "no boots on the ground" to make the progressives happy and yet inserting special forces here and there to conduct "raids", which is really a way to conduct war on the sly.

[underpants]

2. I don't think the air campaign has diminished it just isn't talked about

Yea they gave not other ideas.

The oddest part to me is that people think Obana himself just sits in the Oval Office coming up with our strategy. Everything we are doing is from the Pentagon brass.