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The 2016 Presidential election is fully underway and one year since the U.S. military began military operations against ISIS. Still the U.S. doesn’t have a coherent strategy to defeat the Islamic State.

It seems the current strategy President Obama is pursuing is just do enough to stall without ever having to commit an effective ground force and then pass the problem off to the next president.

Republicans are no better than the president, as they look at the situation in tactical terms instead of strategically, as of last Thursday; Republican candidate for President Donald Trump weighed into the fray and gave his own concept on how he would ultimately defeat the Islamic State.

Trump looked at the situation and summed it up to defeat ISIS is to knock out their primary source of revenue which is oil.

“I would knock out the source of their wealth, the primary sources of their wealth, which is oil,” he continued. “And in order to do that, you would have to put boots on the ground. I would knock the hell out of them, but I’d put a ring around it and I’d take the oil for our country.”

This is a simplistic view of current situation, but this is also the same sort of tactical strategy other Republican candidates have offered. Former New York Governor George Pataki recently commented that his strategy in defeating ISIS would involve greater use of the military.

All Republican candidates have articulated the same concept of use of the military in defeating ISIS, but just like the president, all Republican candidates are looking at this issue in tactical terms instead of a long strategic concept, and are missing the other components.

Much of the Republican strategy revolves around greater employment of U.S. special operation forces to train and embed themselves into the Iraqi army and use its expertise to call in effective close air support on ISIS militants.

The military right now can defeat ISIS in matter of weeks, but the question which neither the president nor any of the challengers from both parties address what happens next.

The debate centers on how we got into Iraq and how we left Iraq, but missing in the disscussion and one that has never been addressed are the other complex issues which feed into the narrative of defeating ISIS.

The United States has crucial national security interest in the Middle East in preventing the region from becoming a major center of terrorism and extremism in this vital area. A unstable Middle East has the strong potential in disrupting energy exports thus impacting the global economy, and the defeat of ISIS is only one component to instability in the region.

A strategy based solely on military solution will effectively succeed especially in Iraq. Military Analyst Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, issued a report that Iraq is a key case in point. No defeat of ISIS can bring it security or stability, and give it the unity and independent strength to resist pressure from Iran and threats based in Syria and Turkey. No military course of action can –by itself–create a stable regime and economy and reduce the tension between Iraqi Sunni and Shiite and Arab and Kurd to workable levels. As is the case in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, as well, military action must be joined to political and economic action and the creation of some form of viable governance.

President Obama has always stressed from the beginning of the U.S. led coalition against ISIS, that Iraq needs a more inclusive government, one in which all religious minority groups especially the Sunni’s and the Kurds, have equal participation.

The problem the president has never stated how he would achieve this aim.

The sectarian problems faced in Iraq pre-date U.S. involvement, but this said, re-debating the Iraq intervention will not solve the current situation. Everyone has to realize both the Bush and Obama administration made strategic mistakes in dealing with Iraq, now we must devise a strategy for dealing with the current situation.

How do we move Iraq into becoming a stable nation devoid of influence from Iran?

How does the administration or any of the challengers from the Democratic and Republican party running for president deal with the sectarian strife between the Shiite dominated and Iranian backed government, or deal with the marginalization of the Sunni’s?

How will the U.S. bring the Kurd’s back into the any future Iraqi government, when they now operate virtually autonomous in the Kurdish region of Iraq?

These are some of the question not being addressed, without even touching on the Iraqi army, which the president states is needed to roll back ISIS.
If this is not hard enough challenge for the U.S., what about the situation in Syria?  The president in 2011, stated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go, but many years later he is still in power and heavily supported by the Iranians and the Russians.

What is the U.S. strategy for Syria?

Donald Trump speaks of taking over the oil fields of the Middle East, but this feeds into the narrative throughout the region, this has been the aim of the United States all along.

What the United States needs is not political campaign rhetoric, but true understanding of the region, otherwise we will continue to repeat the mistakes of the past, with even worse consequences.