Reuters quotes Rafik Hariri Center Senior Fellow Frederic Hof on US efforts to form a regional coalition to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham:
“There has been a serious reconsideration of this issue driven by the facts on the ground in Syria,” said Fred Hof, a former State Department official involved in formulating Syria policy before joining the Atlantic Council think-tank in 2012.
“If you are going to consider an air campaign inside Syria, you are going to need people on the ground who can assist with target acquisition,” he said. “You can’t come to any kind of decisive result through air power alone.”