What I’m afraid that David Ignatius, the haruspex of the DC prevailing wisdom, does not yet understand:
U.S. military commanders are now recommending a “Syria first†strategy that relies on the Kurdish fighters and a smaller Arab force to move gradually toward the Islamic State’s capital of Raqqa, just 25 miles south of the Kurds’ forward positions. The decisive battle for Raqqa could come in the spring. The stalemated campaign in Iraq and other parts of Syria probably would be left for later.
is that the Kurds in Syria have no interest in advancing on Raqqa. They’re fighting to defend their homes not for a free Syria.
Oh, well. Baby steps. Perhaps by the time that spring rolls around the Syrian, Russian, Iranian, and apparently Cuban forces now engaged in an offensive to consolidate the areas in the northwest of Syria and return them to government control will have unseated DAESH from Raqqa.
Perhaps the prevailing Washington wisdom will eventually come, as some have to the realization that there was never a workable path to a free Syria and that the available choices have always been the Assad regime or radical Islamists. We should not be supporting radical Islamists. Better to support no one.
So what if the Kurds take Raqqa? It’s not like ISIS is particularly wedded to that place, is it? The Confederates in the US civil war thought if they could take DC they could force a settlement with the Union. I don’t think anything less than extermination will work with ISIS and I doubt Raqqa is really all that important to them.
I have two quibbles with an otherwise fine post.
Not sure we agree on what “free” means, since we might not agree on the proper role of Authority, Hierarchy, (in this case, Baathist,) in Life.
And, I get your “radical Islamist” reference, and I have one query about them. Why do these always prioritize eradicating Shiism to freeing Palestine? I mean Russia’s allies, also “radical Islamists”
don’t seem to have the same priority, I give you Hezbollah.