Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- June 7, 2016

Islamic State fighters in Iraq

Daniel Trombly, USNI News: Analysis: Defeating ISIS Remains Daunting Task

It has been nearly three years since the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) captured Mosul and advanced rapidly through a number of major population centers in northern Iraq, triggering a major U.S.-led internationalization of the conflict between the jihadist group and the myriad opponents to its attempt to establish territorial supremacy in Iraq and Syria.

On the whole, while ISIS’s geographic extent and financial means have shrunk, seizing and securing population centers under its control remains a daunting military task fraught with humanitarian risks and political complications. While the Coalition-supported effort to isolate Mosul has advanced only haltingly, Iraqi forces are moving on Fallujah, launching another urban assault in a perennial hotbed of Sunni Arab insurgency. In northern Syria, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and militias affiliated with them under the aegis of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are targeting ISIS in the approaches to Raqqa city and the Manbij pocket, ISIS’s primary extant corridor to the Turkish border.

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- June 7, 2016

What U.S. Policy in the Mideast Tragically Leaves Out -- Charles W. Dunne, DW

What a Hillary Clinton nomination means for the Middle East -- Joyce Karam, Al Arabiya

Fallujah is the Iraqis’ fight: Opposing view -- Doug Bandow, USA Today

The Liberation of Iraq Began 25 Years Ago -- Eli Lake, Bloomberg

Kurdish militants exacting highest-ever toll on Turkey -- Alexander Christie-Miller, CSM

Why Is Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu Warming to Russia's Vladimir Putin? -- Damien Sharkov, Newsweek

Doubts about the Japanese prime minister’s economic record are growing -- The Economist

How Vietnam Can Stop the South China Sea ADIZ -- Alexander Vuving, National Interest

Are European companies falling out of love with China? -- Holly Ellyatt, CNBC

Trump, Clinton play the ‘China card’ against North Korea -- Josh Cohen, Reuters

The next Balkan wars -- Timothy Less, New Statesman

How NATO really provoked Putin -- Lucian Kim, Reuters

In a traumatised Netherlands, faith in the EU is plummeting -- Joris Luyendijk, The Guardian

The New Economics of Cybercrime -- Josephine Wolff, The Atlantic

The Evolution Of Terrorism Since 9/11 -- James Miller, RFE

1 comment:

phill said...

The biggest thing I got from the article:

After trumpeting the retaking of the city, ISIS managed to destroy Russian helicopters at the well-guarded T4 airbase, cut a key line of communication to Palmyra, and retake the Shaer gas field (possibly before sabotaging it in a calamitous scorched earth tactic).