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COL (Retired) Gilberto Villahermosa–

The United States doesn’t need to put tens of thousands of US troop boots on the ground to defeat ISIS. We tried that for ten years and it didn’t work. Boots on the ground are indeed needed in Iraq. But they should be the boots of highly specialized United States Special Forces Operators working alongside their Arab counterparts from as members of a Coalition Special Forces Task Force with the mission of cutting ISIS and its leadership to ribbons.

Recently, the Pentagon announced that the anti-ISIS Coalition had launched some 4,200 strikes since August 2014, dropping some 14,000 weapons and killing about 13,000 ISIS fighters. More importantly, according to the Pentagon, the Iraqi Army had retaken about 25 percent of the territory held by ISIS when the campaign started.

The announcement was challenged almost immediately. According to reliable sources, ISIS has not only not lost ground, but continues to gain it against an Iraqi Army too poorly trained, motivated, and led to stand and fight. And the figure of 13,000 ISIS fighters killed sounds wildly inaccurate. Who’s on the ground counting?

We’re losing the war in Iraq and running out of time to stop ISIS from infecting and invading all of the Middle East. If that happens, the US Homeland and our Israeli and Arab allies will pay the price in blood.

Our anti-ISIS strategy suffers from serious shortcomings.

First has been our inability and the Iraqi government’s unwillingness to arm its minority Sunni Arab population and get them into the fight. We are unlikely to defeat ISIS without the support of that segment of the population.

Second has been the inability of the Iraqi government to craft a narrative that challenges ISIS ideology. We can keep killing ISIS fighters forever. But until all the people of Iraq have a hope of a better life and are vested in their government, the Iraqi Army will continue to run away from battle, ISIS will continue to attract large numbers of fighters and we will continue “to cut the grass”.

Third, with regard to airpower, our pilots are complaining that there are too many Rule of Engagement, which severely limit their ability to engage targets. We seek to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties. ISIS knows this and takes advantage of cities and towns to hide its forces and equipment. And US pilots cannot engage.

Fourth, and most significant, is our failure to put boots on the ground in Iraq in meaningful numbers and locations. That leaves the US short of intelligence regarding targets that need to be engaged immediately. As a result, some 75% of our strike sorties return to their bases without dropping their ordnance due to an inability to either find targets or engage them without inflicting unacceptable collateral damage.

It also means that we don’t have military advisers of any kind to assist the Iraqis and to provide some backbone when push comes to shove.

Nor do we have elite ground troops on the ground capable of killing or capturing high-value targets when airpower can’t.

Finally, it means that we are giving Iran the lead in the ground war against ISIS. ISIS may well be defeated by the current coalition of Iraq, Syria, and Iran, but it will leave Iran and Russia in control of the region, something that may not be in the best interests of the United States, nor our Israeli and Arab allies in the Middle East. If either ISIS or Iran win in Iraq, the US and its allies lose.

What is to be done? The United States needs to take the lead in building and deploying a Coalition Special Forces Task Force in Iraq, capable of providing critically needed intelligence, calling in targeted airstrikes, and hunting down and eliminating key ISIS leaders. Such a task force would have the mission of cutting ISIS to ribbons.

NEXT – Coalition Special Forces Task Force “Razor” – Mission and Organization.

Colonel (Retired) Gilberto Villahermosa served 33 years in the United States Army as a Combat Arms Officer, Strategist, Historian, Intelligence Analyst, and Foreign Area Officer (Russia, Eurasia, and the Middle East). He served as the Senior United States Defense Official in Yemen from 2008 to 2010 and was in the US Embassy when it was attacked by AQAP. He is a widely published author and National Security commentator.