There Is No White House Plan To Stop The Islamic State

Larry Downing/Reuters

Nancy A. Youseff, Daily Beast: Obama’s New ISIS War Plan: Nothing

Defeats? What defeats? The terror group may have romped in Ramadi and Palmyra, but the Obama administration isn’t changing its strategy, despite growing doubts in the Pentagon.

The self-proclaimed Islamic State has claimed a major provincial capital in Iraq and taken over another strategically key city in Syria. In response, the Obama administration plans to do—well, not much of anything new.

Four defense officials told The Daily Beast that there’s still strong resistance within the Obama administration to making any serious changes to the current strategy for fighting ISIS—despite mounting skepticism from some in the Pentagon about the current U.S. approach to the war.

Although the Obama administration’s public messaging is that it still wants to “degrade and ultimately defeat” ISIS, in reality, many in the Pentagon view the real objective as just running out the clock.

WNU Editor: In my opinion .... the White House plan has been to minimize U.S. participation .... i.e. no ground troops, targeted air strikes, focus on training and providing intelligence. In short .... escalation has never been an option for this White House .... at least for now.

Update: The U.S. bombing campaign against the Islamic State is raising doubts that the White House is serious in waging war against the Islamic State .... What the U.S. Bombed Before Ramadi Fell (Eli Lake, Bloomberg).