Here's How The US Could Defeat ISIS And Assad

[applegrove]

Here's How The US Could Defeat ISIS And Assad

by Kenneth Pollack, Brookings Institution/Business Insider
http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-the-us-could-defeat-isis-and-assad-2014-9

"SNIP..........................



First, the strategy cannot require sending U.S. troops into combat. Funds, advisers, and even air power are all fair game -- but only insofar as they do not lead to American boots on the ground.

Second, any proposal must provide for the defeat of both the Assad regime and the most radical Islamist militants, since both threaten U.S. interests.

Any proposal must provide for the defeat of both the Assad regime and the most radical Islamist militants — both threaten U.S. interests.

Third, the policy should offer reasonable hope of a stable end state. Because spillover from Syria’s civil war represents the foremost security concern, defeating the regime while allowing the civil war to continue — or even crushing both the regime and the extremists while allowing other groups to fight on — would amount to a strategic failure.

There are no certainties in warfare, but any plan for greater U.S. involvement must at least increase the odds of stabilizing Syria.

Finally, the plan should have a reasonable chance of accomplishing what it sets out to do. Washington must avoid far-fetched schemes with uncertain chances of success, no matter how well they might fit its objectives in other ways. It should also properly fund the strategy it does select. Announcing a new, more ambitious Syria policy but failing to give it an adequate budget would be self-defeating, convincing friend and foe alike that the United States lacks the will to defend its interests.

...........................SNIP"

[sawdust]

1. so what is it that we do to defeat isil

I didn't get that part? Do we bomb them? Set traps for them? Hire foreign militias? Send attack dogs? What is the actual plan?

[applegrove]

2. Use american expetese to fund and revamp the good Syrian rebels.

[sawdust]

3. gotcha

Sounds like a plan to me

[daschess1987]

4. Okey dokey!

But who fills the void? Who are these "moderate" rebels? Why doesn't Senator McCain go to Syria and get his picture taken with them? First, I need to be sold on how Assad is working against my interests; then I need to be sold that the so-called moderates aren't infinitely worse.

[imthevicar]

5. IOW

Bomb the hell out of them, set up a puppet government, and steal their resources for corporate greed.
Wow What an original solution.

[quadrature]

6. chaos in Libya, is worse than Ghadaffi

same in Syria

we are helping the wrong
war-criminals

[bemildred]

7. More arrogant horseshit from our ruling elites. nt

[flamingdem]

9. I think they don't want to admit that it's going to be a war of attrition

with all the Syrian forces depleting one another but keeping each other in check. I certainly hope they don't blindly trust the Syrian Free Army since they are probably infiltrated by Isis.

[gbronzo]

12. Pollock obviously on board with interventionist agenda

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/09/airi-s09.html

"...That the US is still plotting against Assad can be seen in numerous articles produced by think-tanks and foreign policy magazines. One that appeared in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs (An Army to Defeat Assad) is penned by former CIA analyst and leading Democratic Party strategist Kenneth M. Pollock, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Pollock calls for the United States to massively arm and train the current opposition forces in Syria creating an army that could defeat ISIS and topple the Assad regime, establishing a pro-US military dictatorship....

ISIS is not, as the American government and mainstream media insist, an inexplicable “evil” force or a “cancer.” The success of ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups in Syria and Iraq is very much a product of American foreign policy in the Middle East.

The relationship of the American government to ISIS follows a traditional pattern, including its relationship to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. Like Al Qaeda, ISIS is a product of US intervention...

The attempt by American imperialism to draw a hard line between the FSA, which it openly backs, and groups like ISIS, is a political fraud.

During the course of the Syrian conflict, thousands of fighters have defected from the FSA to al-Nusra, with entire brigades pledging their allegiance to the al-Qaeda affiliate. Al-Nusra units and FSA brigades have regularly launched joint attacks against Assad’s forces.
At the end of last year a commander of the Supreme Military Council of Free Syrian Army’s eastern front, Saddam al-Jamal, pledged his allegiance to ISIS. Earlier this year, Al-Nusra and ISIS fought together in a failed attempt to defend the city of Yabroud from an attack by the Syrian military....

[bemildred]

13. We lost Vietnam. We lost Iraq War II. We lost Afghanistan.

The only war we have won since WWII was Iraq War I, and that's because we didn't stay long. There is jack shit in the way of evidence that our government or our military has the foggiest idea how to win these little colonial/economic wars against ragtag insurgencies. We are masters of tactics and don't have a clue when it comes to strategy. We confuse strategy with "vision" or something.

(Well, OK, we won Grenada, too. And Panama.)

[KoKo]

14. Recommend your post...and now that we know Brookings gets some Foreign Funding

it makes that an exceptionally interesting read.

Welcome to DU...!

NYT: Special Investigation: Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks--Brookings/Atlantic Council

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016102092

[flamingdem]

8. Richard Engle of msnbc made the point that the Free Syrian Army

has been reduced to nearly nothing. He asks if we're willing to arm a new version of this army and train it. There are many refugees that might join up but it's a huge undertaking.

I think the truth is in the middle. Keep all the groups fighting so Isis and Assad cannot dominate. It's just too nasty to admit.

[CJCRANE]

10. What did Assad do to us?

I don't recall Assad threatening us in any way.

[flamingdem]

11. You're not supposed to question the narrative