May 21, 2015 | Quote

Delta’s Recent Raid In Syria May Have Revealed An Inconvenient Truth About Fighting ISIS

Last weekend’s special forces raid, which killed a midlevel Islamic State commander, has revived the debate on overt U.S. military ground action in Syria and Iraq.

The operation was just the second publicized American combat action in Syria since the 2011 start of that country’s civil war. The first was a botched attempt to rescue journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, both of whom the group beheaded last year. President Barack Obama has insisted since at least 2013 that the United States would not commit any “boots on the ground,” that is, active combat troops, to the conflict in Syria.

Initial reports claimed that the dead operative’s wife, whom special operators captured in the raid, could provide actionable intelligence on IS’ activities in Syria and Iraq.

The current U.S. stance against Islamic State consists primarily of airstrikes against the group’s positions in Syria and Iraq, supplemented by the quiet training of forces fighting the jihadis as well as, apparently, these rare covert raids. By contrast, Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite militias have stepped in to do much of the heavy lifting against IS — a job that Iraq’s own military has been hard-pressed to perform.

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In remarks published by The Daily Beast Sunday, Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said that “the U.S. could do quite a bit more to defeat ISIS,” suggesting that progress is “hindered by a reticence on the part of American decision makers to put boots on the ground.”

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Issues:

Syria