Austin Wright and Nahal Toosi, Politico: Obama war strategy faces key test in Ramadi
The battle could determine if U.S.-backed forces can seize and hold ground.
President Barack Obama's military strategy to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, under fire from nearly every quarter in Washington and on the campaign trail, is finally poised for a key victory.
The Pentagon on Tuesday declared it “inevitable” that Iraqi forces backed by U.S. airstrikes and military advisers will soon retake the city of Ramadi, whose fall to the Sunni terrorist group earlier this year marked a major setback for the president's approach.
Update: Obama: I Have "The Best" Strategy To Defeat ISIS, Republicans "Don't Have An Answer" (Real Clear Politics).
WNU Editor: I am not optimistic that this strategy will succeed in the long run. Ramadi will be retaken, but the sectarian divisions within Iraq are now so deep that I have trouble seeing reconciliation occurring any-time in the near future. The best that President Obama can hope in the remaining year of his Presidency are a few victories in Iraq's Anbar province, and a coalition of forces being assembled to retake the ISIS stronghold of Mosul.
3 comments:
The "Iraqi forces backed by U.S. airstrikes" are actually Shi'ite militias controlled and supported by Iran, for which the US takes credit.
Rare footage of Iraqi military training:
https://youtu.be/JBPtjMFLWzQ
If Mosul falls in spring of 2017, it won't help Obama. He'll still take credit though.
I figure Mosul will fall in 6 to 12 months. but I was wrong last time when I thought they would take it 2 or 3 months after Tikrit.
Obozo spends more time golfing than on the War on Terror.
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