IF ISIS is planning 2016 attacks on American soil and also versus U.S. targets elsewhere, as reported recently to the U.S. President and the U.S. Congress by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, all the more reason why ISIS needs to depart from planet Earth.
BUT---what should be the driving principle behind a U.S. kill-ISIS campaign, and what should this anti-ISIS campaign consist of?
FOR starters, ISIS isn’t just a target-America entity, it’s for death to all that which isn’t for the ISIS version of Islam and for an ISIS-led caliphate encompassing more than the Middle East. Too, ISIS is, except unto itself, of the lowliest caliber of human endeavor for achievement of ends, that of murdering perceived enemies in the most hideous of ways.
AND so from being feverishly imperialistic and barbaric, ISIS translates as, “Threat to civilization in every direction from the land that it now occupies.” Therefore, a driving principle behind a U.S. effort to eradicate ISIS has to be as would exist for a dangerous disease, examples, EBOLA, AIDS and the worst among cancers, in effect, nothing other than “Principle of extinction!”
WHAT should resonate now is that ISIS can be destroyed from any of two overarching military concepts: it can be made to melt away from a massive air, sea and land invasion in, say, a month or two, as if hot lava from a volcano were to keep raining down upon it until moment of surrender, or ISIS can be taken apart “Incrementally,” that is, slow-burn from killshots here and there over a period of many months.
FOR the former military method, consider that ISIS is now of around 40,000 combatants and has no air force, while the U.S. is of around a half million readied combatants and owns the world’s most advanced combat air assets, while the NATO allies, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and the Kurds could contribute close to a half million. That’s approximately a million fighters and so more than 10 combatants up against but one ISIS fighter, without question enough “Overmatch” to defeat ISIS early on.
FOR ISIS to be taken down “Incrementally,” the nibbles must be harsh, penetrating and “without pause,” so that ISIS is forced to remain “on the defensive,” unable to plan and carry out attacks locally, regionally or elsewhere. Where the former strategy is concerned, “Shock and awe” has to dominate. As to the latter concept, an imperative has to be “Consistency,” or there’s no ballgame that the U.S. and the allies could dominate easily, which the U.S. and its allies can provide.
COMMON to each strategy is necessity for “asymmetric blowouts & containments,” i.e., the going after all sources that ISIS relies upon for support: weapons providers, oil for cash, financial contributors and sites, attainment of vehicles and equipment parts, methods of recruitment. Attacking some of this is where air-warfare lists as relentless jabs prior to any planned left and right hooks and straight punches from follow-on land forces, all to keep weakening the ISIS defenses even as ISIS attempts to reinforce them. Of course, a key U.S. and allied nation component of this has to remain intelligence-gathering and special operations activities (Read: CIA and U.S. Army Special Ops), plus relentless Cyber-intrusions diminishing the ISIS Internet-means for recruitment and messaging. Add, U.S. homeland and U.S. out-of-country security against the possibility of ISIS terrorism and vs. ISIS-inspired terrorism.
ALSO, an option that has been avoided by the Obama Administration is the U.S. attempting to defeat ISIS alone. Preferred by the White House for either of the two military concepts cited here, is that the U.S. should support those nations believed to have the bigger stake in destroying ISIS, for instance, Iraq, the Kurds, Turkey, Jordan.
THAT of going it alone, or with allied forces within the scope of an invasion similar to that which conquered Iraq under U.S. President George W. Bush, such has been off the table namely from unwillingness to accept killings of large numbers of innocent persons and destroying non-ISIS property, this from the necessary U.S. and allied bombing that would have to precede and accompany a ground force invading.
YES, the possible consequences from a large U.S. and allied invasion causing ISIS to vanish from Earth are hardly pretty and low-key. These include likelihood of several thousand U.S. and allied KIA and WIA, a few billion dollars in costs, intensification of ISIS unleashing terrorism beyond the Middle East, ISIS setting up a second front in other countries, al-Qaeda and the Taliban supporting ISIS by increasing anti-U.S. actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, plus mere presence of U.S. ground troops in the Middle East serving to expand ISIS recruitment for actions vs. America’s Middle East allies, thereby forcing local conflicts to become regional. Add, unsteady growth of the current Iran/Saudi differences, which could lead to either proxy terrorism involving the two or direct military encounters, also oil prices skyrocketing; and, add Russia intensifying its pro-Assad support to turn Syria into a bulwark ending possibility of a Syria led by a peaceful coalition government, Russia then establishing Assad as proxy for Moscow’s Middle East interests. Too, there’s no guarantee of a few ISIS remnants failing to resurrect, the re-starts being a smattering of small terrorist cells vs. U.S. and European targets.
THE Obama administration’s enactment of “Incrementalism” has seemed proper for elimination of ISIS when viewed against the possible consequences of a large anti-ISIS invasion. Enter, however, the recent CIA report, which advises that the terrorism on U.S. soil being planned by ISIS could be of the catastrophic genre, e.g., another 9/11. This poses a hard question, “Should America wait to see if such can be deterred, or should the U.S. and the allies rev up attempts to undo ISIS, maybe plan for that big invasion to happen soon?”
IF anything is certain about all this, it’s an aspect of American behavior that ISIS, all other Jihadists, Syria’s al-Assad, Iran’s mullahs and other rogue actors may have little understanding of, and that is that when positioned upon a horizon of growing anger the U.S. could shout “Enough is enough” and bring all of its might against any perpetrator having gone too far in efforts to cause horrendous pain against those undeserving of such. Cautionary risk may not even prevail when that point is reached. In other words, another 9/11 could seed U.S. action causing “Incrementalism” to disappear and be replaced by something a lot more “Shock and awe” than the aforementioned large invasion. . . Not improbable is an America furious enough to put all thoughts of consequences aside while causing all of any Jihad to fry and become dying embers, next ashes splitting and disappearing inside a cold and driving wind.
