The Washington Examiner quotes Brent Scowcroft Center Resident Senior Fellow for Middle East Security Bilal Y. Saab on the Obama administration’s strategies against ISIS and the risks they involve:
“We are due for a comprehensive review of the administration’s strategy against ISIS,” said Bilal Saab, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “We can continue to step up our kinetic efforts, but the overall plan to the extent that one is discernable lacks clear strategic guidance. Killing one bee at a time when you’re dealing with a massive whole beehive is not exactly sound strategy.”
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Saab noted that the problem of the Islamic State stems from systemic failure of governance in the Arab world, and that a successful change in strategy requires some acceptance of political risk, which the administration so far has been unwilling to do.