Is There A U.S. - Iranian Alliance To Combat The Islamic State?

America Has An Unannounced ISIS Strategy, And It Involves Iran -- Jacob Siegel, Daily Beast

Obama may say “we don’t have a strategy yet” for beating ISIS. Growing American operations on the ground paint a different picture—one with Iranian hues.

The President hasn’t announced his strategy for dealing with ISIS yet, but there is a clear military approach taking shape in Iraq. On an operational level, the military intervention has shown some early success in using U.S. airpower to support local ground forces and halt ISIS’s advances. But the tension between tactics and strategy, methods and goals, is already starting to show. The battle we won yesterday could make it harder to win a war tomorrow.

And while the American strategy for ISIS is stalled, the air war in Iraq has been expanding steadily.

In early August, when airstrikes were first authorized, the administration articulated a limited set of goals and stressed that it wouldn’t be drawn further into Iraq’s civil war. In its first phase, the air mission focused on humanitarian relief and defending American personnel from an ISIS advance. That lasted about a week. The air strikes seemed to be working and as ISIS was pushed back so were the limits of the mission. A month ago there was a narrow reactive approach to ISIS, now there is an evolving, offensive mission.

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Previous Post: Iran's Supreme Leader Has Approved Joint Military Efforts With The US To Contain The Islamic State

My Comment: I am skeptical that such a strategy/alliance exists .... Iran's Supreme Leader cannot stomach the U.S., and the White House approach to the rise of the Islamic State has been one of denial of the situation until (maybe) now.

Update: Obama's IS Strategy, Decoded -- John Merline, Investors.com