All the President's Strategery

Are you ready for Professor Ditherton Wiggleroom’s Three-Year-Plan for dealing with IS/Caliphate? Well here it is anyway:

The first phase, an air campaign with nearly 145 airstrikes in the past month, is already underway to protect ethnic and religious minorities and American diplomatic, intelligence and military personnel, and their facilities, as well as to begin rolling back ISIS gains in northern and western Iraq.

The next phase, which would begin sometime after Iraq forms a more inclusive government, scheduled this week, is expected to involve an intensified effort to train, advise or equip the Iraqi military, Kurdish fighters and possibly members of Sunni tribes.

The final, toughest and most politically controversial phase of the operation — destroying the terrorist army in its sanctuary inside Syria — might not be completed until the next administration. Indeed, some Pentagon planners envision a military campaign lasting at least 36 months.

Air strikes against terrorists are always a good thing, so I’m not going to quibble with Step One, other than to say, “Step it up!” An increase op tempo would be nice, to catch whatever moves, as soon as it moves.

Skipping ahead to Step Three, we see that Obama isn’t skipping ahead to a premature exit strategy, which is also a good thing. But the only way to avoid helping the bad guys in Syria, even accidentally, is to adopt a strategy of Bomb Them All and Let Allah Sort Them Out — which seems somewhat unlikely from this or any other postmodern Administration. Lord, but I do miss Curtis Lemay sometimes.

Step Two though is just Ditherton Wiggleroom being Ditherton Wiggleroom. According to the report, we’re not going to get really serious until “after Iraq forms a more inclusive government.” That’s supposed to happen sometime soon, but suppose it doesn’t. Or suppose Iraq’s new government isn’t quite inclusive enough, or starts inclusive but becomes less inclusive. Who’s to say? And why is getting Iraq’s domestic crap sorted out (an ongoing event since the Dawn of Time) more important than getting weapons and training to Peshmerga forces?

Wiggleroom is still trying to get Middle Eastern thugs to stop acting so thuggishly by allowing even worse thugs to run rampant, even though we’re in this situation precisely because of this strategy. And one third of his new strategy is more of the failed old strategy.

Did I mention I miss Curtis Lemay?