Rafik Hariri Center Senior Fellow Frederic C. Hof is quoted by Bloomberg on the recently announced US military operation in Iraq:
Even though Obama has ruled out ground combat troops, “there may be opportunities to insert special-operations units that can play havoc” with militant forces, said Frederic Hof, a former special adviser on Syria at the State Department who’s now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
U.S. airpower on its own can’t defeat the Islamic State, he said, so “the heavy lifting militarily has to be borne by the Iraqi army.”