The Los Angeles Times quotes Rafik Hariri Center Resident Senior Fellow Frederic C. Hof on what the United States should do to combat ISIS:
Frederic C. Hof, a former Syria expert in Obama’s State Department, argues that the U.S. and France should build a multinational coalition — like the one that fought the Persian Gulf War against Iraq in 1991 — and defeat Islamic State on the ground.Meanwhile, he said, the U.S. and its allies should build a stronger Syrian opposition movement that could govern any territory the coalition takes.
“Liberated eastern Syria would become, in effect, the mother of all protection zones,” Hof told me. “This will not be a walk in the park,” he acknowledged.