How Will The War Against Islamic State End?

Displaced Sunni people fleeing the violence in Ramadi, cross a bridge on the outskirts of Baghdad, May 24, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer

Peter Apps, Reuters: How will the war against Islamic State end?

“Tell me how this ends,” U.S. Army General David Petraeus said in 2003, not long after the invasion of Iraq. What started as a private comment to a journalist later became his mantra.

It was a bold question, designed to cut through messy thinking from other officials as Washington tried to find its way out of the conflict. The result, of course, was much more complex than the U.S. military had hoped.

The most important answer to Petraeus’ question is that “it” wasn’t going to end. Rarely do wars have firm and tidy endings, an armistice or a final defeat like that of Germany in 1945 or Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers in 2009. Even if the killing stops, confrontations continue through politics and elsewhere.

WNU Editor: I disagree with Peter Apps' assertion that the Iraqi state started to unravel before the U.S. left .... I was posting at the time that after years of conflict the trend-line was finally showing a decrease in violence and terrorism, and that Iraqis were finally looking for ways to achieve a lasting peace. Of course .... everything started to implode when then PM Maliki started to introduce his sectarian agenda a few months after the US departure. As for the future .... I do not see a strategy to defeat the Islamic State. The Middle East is now deeply divided .... the old standards and understandings are no longer being followed .... and in this chaos I have trouble seeing anyone stepping up to enforce some semblance of authority and stability. In fact .... I sometimes wonder if we may be faced with a future threat from the region that would make the current Islamic State pale in comparison.