Iraq

Is anyone paying attention to Iraq?

How did your team do on opening day? Well, I hope. My Cleveland Indians weren't able to pull out a W in Seattle. But here's a neat story for you I heard yesterday as I was driving home: Michaela Murphy's hilarious tale about her unsupervised childhood trip to the 1981 All Star Game at old Cleveland…

When the young Muslim known as “Mo” decided he could no longer live in America, the Islamic State wasn’t his destination of choice. Initially, he said, he wanted to migrate to Saudi Arabia to study at the University of Medina—but he couldn’t get in. A diet of online propaganda convinced him the…

The new year is less than a week old, and so far, the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS is reporting there have been no strikes against the terrorist group ISIS in Iraq. A single strike on New Year's Eve day near Bayji, Iraq was the last such attack. The four days with no strikes matches a previous…

The Islamic State's smattering of remaining strongholds in Iraq and Syria are under siege. At the height of the self-declared caliphate’s power in mid-2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s men controlled large swaths of both countries. Today, the jihadists hold only a few towns straddling the Iraqi-Syrian…

In the wake of the New York City truck attack that killed eight and for which ISIS claimed responsibility, President Donald Trump tweeted that "the Military has hit ISIS 'much harder' over the last two days." However, there is no direct evidence of a spike in anti-ISIS strikes, and the broader…

Over at the Long War Journal, Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio have the first analysis of the massive trove of documents, files, and images which were recovered at Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, during the raid in which bin Laden was killed.

Iraqi prime minister Haider Al-Abadi took to Twitter on October 13 to dispute rumors that his forces were mobilizing to take over areas under the control of Iraqi Kurds, particularly the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. “The fake news being spread has a deplorable agenda behind it,” he wrote. As with most…

The American Humane Association (AHA) awarded its K-9 Medal of Courage to five dogs this past week for their exceptional service in the U.S. military. After multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, spent searching for explosives and chewing up insurgents who regard them as unclean (dogs: 1,…

The Scrapbook was dismayed but not surprised when, in the waning days of his presidency, Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning. We have been equally dismayed and unsurprised at the desire of left-leaning institutions to treat Manning as some sort of folk hero. It is cold comfort…

Kurds in northern Iraq control their own land, maintain their own military, and share a common culture and language. They also have an overwhelming desire to separate from Iraq and become an independent state. But can a de facto nation become a real country if it isn’t recognized by the diplomatic…

The people of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq voted today in a referendum on independence from Baghdad. It could take a few days to tally the votes, but there can be little doubt about the result. The Kurds have struggled for self-determination for a century. In January 2005, the non-governmental…

President Trump’s new strategy for Afghanistan shows considerable reflection among the president and his top advisers on many military questions but deep confusion on the issues of “nation-building” and democracy.

President Trump’s new strategy for Afghanistan shows considerable reflection among the president and his top advisers on many military questions but deep confusion on the issues of “nation-building” and democracy.

Two U.S. Army soldiers were killed and another five injured in Iraq Sunday while "conducting combat operations" according to a U.S. Central Command news release. A CENTCOM official told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the Army artillery unit was engaged in a "counter-fire mission against an ISIS mortar…

The Trump administration is conducting a comprehensive review of U.S. policy toward Iran. There is no doubt top national security officials view the Islamic Republic as a major threat, both in terms of regional instability and proliferation. This recognition represents the principal difference from…

Derek Harvey, a top Middle East adviser to President Donald Trump, has been fired from his position at the National Security Council, effective today. Harvey, a longtime intelligence professional with vast experience in the Middle East, was a key player in the Trump administration’s Iran policy…

Prominent evangelical leaders are condemning the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Iraqi immigrants, which include Chaldean Christians, as part of a deal struck with the Iraqi government to remove the country from the Trump administration’s travel ban.

President Trump signed a new executive order on Monday to replace a previous order that restricted travel into the United States from several foreign countries. The new order maintains the restriction from six of the seven countries in the original one—Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and…

President Donald Trump has named U.S. Army lieutenant general H.R. McMaster to be his new national security advisor. The Monday afternoon announcement comes nearly one week after Mike Flynn was asked to resign from the job following revelations he had misled the White House on his conversations…

Erbil, Iraq

The United States military has confirmed what previously was only hinted at: the Islamic State, otherwise known as ISIS, is producing its own drones—and they are weaponized. A "rocket and unmanned aerial vehicle factory" was among the many targets hit by the coalition near Mosul, Iraq this week.

Reports have it that Hillary Clinton is considering Joe Biden for secretary of state in her administration. The bench of popular, high profile Democrats isn't exactly deep these days and Biden has always been particularly interested in foreign policy, so on a superficial level recruiting Biden for…

Over at Commentary, Max Boot has some enlightening analysis of the fight to retake Mosul, and why the Republican nominee's comments are foolish:

Vice President Joe Biden once triumphantly declared that Iraq would one day be seen as the Obama administration's "greatest achievement." This was back when the plan was to bring all American troops homes. There was some talk of leaving a residual force of 10,000 or so, but this plan was never…

In 2013, after Syria's President Bashar al-Assad had unquestionably engaged in chemical warfare against his own citizens, President Obama delivered this warning:

There was a time when the Obama administration was being urged to leave a residual force in Iraq. The presence of U.S. troops would, the argument went, have a stabilizing effect. The force, according to its proponents, would number somewhere around 10,000. This, of course, didn't happen. The…

In the 1960s, history called the Baby Boomers. They didn't answer the phone.

Phew! "Turkey sends tanks into Syria ...," CNN headlined on Thursday. "The goal is to crush ISIS." It's about time Turkey joined the war against Islamist terror. Some had suspected Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan of having a soft spot for ISIS, even of letting his country be used as a supply…

Donald Trump delivered a strong speech Monday on thwarting terrorists and crushing ISIS while cleverly disguising it as an address on national security policy.

The Chilcot report on the Iraq war ought to elicit two emotions: sympathy and pity for former British prime minister Tony Blair. As was evident by late 2002, when Europeans saw the frightful resolve of George W. Bush and began earnestly debating how evil Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was and what…

Donald Trump claimed last week that Saddam Hussein, the deceased Iraqi dictator who was deposed from power more than a decade ago, was "so good" at killing terrorists. The presumptive Republican nominee's point was to suggest Iraq would be better off as it was prior to the 2003 invasion by…

Donald Trump praised Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for his handling of terrorists at a Tuesday campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.

While announcing new humanitarian aid for Iraq, the Obama administration has acknowledged that nearly 10 percent of the Iraqi population, or 3 million people, is living in territory controlled by ISIS (or ISIL).

One of the virtues of the political insurgencies of this presidential campaign has been that they have forced both parties to confront difficult questions that most mainstream politicians have preferred to ignore. On the domestic policy front, the unavoidable issue is the plight of the working…

Beaufort, S.C.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Donald Trump's debate performance in South Carolina, and how that might go over with voters.

Bernie Sanders is subtly bringing up Dick Cheney and George W. Bush in his latest ad. The ad is an anti-Iraq spot, highlighting his opposition to the war from the get go.

When word got out that Rep. Jim McDermott will be packing it in at the end of the year, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was quick to plump the blustery leftist who has represented Seattle since 1989. He “has been a tenacious champion of hard-working Americans," he "has shown the strength of…

President Barack Obama is beginning to use tougher rhetoric when discussing ISIS. The leader of the free world, today at a press conference at the Ritz Carlton in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, vowed to destory ISIS and to take the land they are currently occupying. 

Before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, my friend Ahmad Chalabi would often carry fat tomes about America’s occupations of Germany and Japan. An Iraqi exile after 1958 who lived mainly in London and Georgetown and maintained an off-and-on, love-hate relationship with Western intelligence agencies, he…

President Obama does not believe ISIS is getting stronger. At least, that's what he said this morning in an interview that aired on ABC News:

Ahmed Chalabi died Tuesday, at his home in Baghdad, without many honors. He had egged on the U.S. invasion in 2003 by circulating stories of Saddam’s nuclear facilities, wanting to be president of his old country. But when none were found, he became infamous in his new one instead.  

The Pentagon Friday announced the death of Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, a soldier who had been serving in Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq. He died of wounds received during a hostage rescue mission. But in keeping with the Obama administration's insistence that the president ended combat…

White House spokesman Josh Earnest compared Vladimir Putin's bombing in Syria to George W. Bush's "military solution in Iraq in the last decade." Earnest made the comparison at the daily White House press briefing.

Antisemitism has never been an easy subject for America’s foreign-policy establishment. Read through State Department telegrams and Central Intelligence Agency operational and intelligence cables on the Middle East and you will seldom find it discussed, even though Jew-hatred—not just…

The latest official report of a drone in the possession of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) is tucked in an August 3rd press release from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the overseers of the air campaign in Syria and Iraq against the terrorist organization. 

Former vice president Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe Wednesday morning to promote their new book, Exceptional. The Cheneys spoke about national security, foreign policy issues like the Iran deal, and 2016 politics.

Jeb Bush delivered a thoughtful and clear-eyed speech on Tuesday about the threat posed by ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism. It was a forward-looking speech that offered a compelling strategy to deal with this growing threat (something we haven’t heard from Hillary Clinton).

According to CNN:

President Obama is putting on the hard sell to market the nuclear deal he reached with Iran. On July 14, in announcing the agreement, he said: “This deal shows the real and meaningful change that American leadership and diplomacy can bring—change that makes our country and the world safer and more…

Just after midnight on August 2, 1990, an invasion force of approximately 100,000 Iraqi troops crossed into Kuwait. As mechanized and armored Republican Guard divisions breached the border and sped southward across the desert, Iraqi Special Forces commandos launched airborne and amphibious assaults…

ISIS strives to create a new Caliphate.  It is the fundamental reason for its existence.  But the vision does not stop there.  As USA Today reports:

General Ray Odierno, the outgoing chief of staff of the Army, blamed President Obama's disengagement from Iraq for the country falling apart. He made the comments in an interview tonight on Fox News:

That is the guidance from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in what will likely be his last message to the troops and commanders serving under him. 

Josh Rogin & Eli Lake report in Bloomberg that:

A year ago the Islamic State first made headlines around the world by storming Mosul and conquering Iraq’s second-largest city. President Obama pledged to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the organization. Here we are a year later, and with ISIS now holding more territory—including other Iraqi…

Michael R. Gordon at the New York Times writes:

On a day when the president declares that the United States does not yet have a complete strategy for defeating ISIS, it compounds the discouragement to learn that, as Barry Posen writes at DefenseOne:

At a press conference in Germany, President Obama admitted that he does not have a "complete strategy" to defeat ISIS:

The latest craze in the presidential campaign is to ask the contenders (on the Republican side) whether they would have invaded Iraq if you knew what you know now. The answer is supposed to be obvious. Jeb Bush got himself into some trouble by answering the more important question, which is where…

Much has been made of the pending Iraqi offensive to retake Ramadi from ISIS but it may be that Iraq’s principle city is vulnerable.

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina says the United States is "not making progress" in its fight against ISIS. In a recent interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Fiorina said President Obama "understates the significance of the situation" with the terrorist group that has taken over large…

CNN is reporting:

Sinan Salaheddin of the AP reports:

Kentucky senator Rand Paul says the "hawks" in the Republican party helped create and grow the Islamic State terrorist group. Paul, who is running for president, appeared Wednesday morning on MSNBC, where host Joe Scarborough asked him about fellow senator Lindsey Graham's own likely White House…

The BBC reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is saying:

Oklahoma City

In remarks today on Capitol Hill, Speaker of House John Boehner called for action in Iraq:

Bill Kristol, writing in USA Today:

Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas said President Obama is "not providing the resources" to defeat the Islamic State in and that United States ought to send "a few thousand more" troops into Iraq to combat the terrorist group in that country.

Susan Rice, speaking at the German embassy, on Tuesday night:

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker said America should focus on the current challenges and problems faced in Iraq. Speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, Walker responded to a question from Bob Schieffer about potential 2016 rival Jeb Bush's difficult time answering questions about the 2003 invasion of…

A DoD News story, published on Defense.gov, claims that the "Strategy to Defeat ISIL is Working, Military Official Says."

The U.S. killed an ISIS leader, Abu Sayyaf, last night in Syria. And, U.S. forces, now have his wife, Umm Sayyaf, in custody. The news was released today by the White House's National Security Council.

For Jeb Bush and the issue of the Iraq War, the third time was the charm—but you wouldn’t know that from reading the headlines. Bush, the former Florida governor and brother of the president who took American troops into Iraq in 2003, had a difficult time explaining his position on the war this…

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush has stumbled in his effort to answer questions about the wisdom of invading Iraq, given intelligence failures revealed since his brother George W. Bush launched the war in 2003. Members of the media have taken the opportunity to ask other would-be or…

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz told Fox News' Megyn Kelly that knowing what he knows now, he wouldn't have supported going into Iraq. 

The United States is offering big pay outs to anyone who has "information" on key ISIS leaders. "The U.S. Department of State's Rewards for Justice Program is offering rewards for information on four key leaders of the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The Secretary of…

Bill Roggio and Caleb Weiss, at longwarjournal.com, write that:

The ouster of ISIS fighters from Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, has been widely celebrated. Although this victory was brought about in no small part by American airpower, it was a triumph for Iran more than for the United States. The vast majority of fighters on the front lines belonged to…

The Obama administration once pointed to Yemen as the proof that the application of what it calls “smart power” works.  Today, from John Zarocostas, writing for McClatchy, we learn that:

That was Henry Kissinger’s famous sally about the war between Iran and Iraq, back in the 80s.  Now, the big rivals in that part of the world are not actually nations, in the conventional sense.  They are, rather, movements with aspirations to more than just physical territory. They are out to…

One of the important pieces of news to come out of Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi’s visit to the White House Tuesday is that Iraq will be receiving delivery of F-16s. At Commentary, Max Boot asks if this is such a wise move, “Why Are We Giving F-16s to an Iranian-Infiltrated Government?”

So says the interior minister of Iraq, Mohammed al-Ghabban. As Reuters is reporting:

The battle for Tikrit has not been going well for the Iraqi army, its Shia militia allies and their Iranian advisors. So the U.S. has begun flying air strikes in support. And, as the New York Times reports 

As Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post is reporting, after a hasty departure from Yemen:

What does the likely victory of Iraqi forces retaking Tikrit from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria tell us about the current U.S. military strategy in Iraq?

Less than a week ago, General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was saying:

Iraq, with significant assistance from Iran and dangerous participation by Shia militias, has been on the offensive in Tikrit all week and is close to taking the city back from ISIS. Now:

Concerned Veterans for America releases its second installment of from its "Leading from Behind" series. This one is on Iraq:

In late 2001, when initial military operations in Afghanistan produced surprising successes, the opening skit on Saturday Night Live was a send-up of the daily press conference given by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Actor Darrell Hammond made a perfect Rummy, complete with rimless…

Mark Hensch of The Hill writes that:

Robert Burns of the AP reports that:

The Obama Administration’s defacto anti-ISIS partnership with Tehran is helping Iran’s Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimeni and Ayatollah Khamenei “Finlandize” Iraq. Not only does this damage U.S. interests in sustaining an independent and sovereign Iraq, but the Obama Administration’s apparent…

The AP is reporting that:

Someone in the Pentagon, speaking on background (which is a pretty crowded place, these days) has let the world, and our enemies, know when and where the offensive is coming. According to the New York Times, “The assault to retake Mosul, Iraq, from the Islamic State will require 20,000 to 25,000…

In his most recent weekly column, Washington Free Beacon editor in chief Matthew Continetti argues, “Our ISIS problem is a consequence of the American failure to respond effectively to our almost four-years-old Syrian problem.” Obama’s resolution seeking an authorization of military force and his…

ISIS has made its greatest gains and won its most significant victories in Iraq’s Anbar province.  This is where the offensive against ISIS is expected to begin, sometime in the next few months, with an attempt to retake the city of Mosul.  But while preparations for that campaign are underway,…

The unraveling of Nightly News anchor Brian Williams's accounts of his reporting in Iraq and Katrina-ravaged New Orleans has become a black mark on NBC News's reputation. A detailed account in Thursday's Washington Post of the decision to suspend Williams for six months without pay appears to…

Media reporter Howie Kurtz talked about the Brian Williams affair last night with Fox News's Megyn Kelly:

In 2013, NBC newsreader Brian Williams re-told the fake story of how his helicopter was shot down in Iraq. The story, which he passionately retells to David Letterman, begins about the 3 minute mark, with many details that we now know do not reflect reality:

Brian Williams admitted today that he lied about being aboard a helicopter that was shot down by an RPG in Iraq in 2003. The NBC News anchor retold the story as recently as last week:

"So-called ‘sand movies,’ the term Hollywood sometimes uses for films set in Afghanistan and Iraq, have a terrible box office track record,” noted the New York Times. Or rather, they had a terrible box office track record. The release of American Sniper, a biopic about Iraq war veteran and…

Outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told CNN that ground troops may be required to fight ISIS. "It could be necessary," Hagel said.

The U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, the largest and most expensive in the world, cost at least $700 million to build by the time of its completion in 2009. Several years later in 2012, the embassy was scheduled for a $115 million upgrade as the Washington Post reported at the time. However, in spite…

American Sniper is easily the most authentic looking and sounding movie that Hollywood has made about American troops at war since Black Hawk Down.

In last night's State of the Union, President Obama reiterated his call upon Congress to pass a new "AUMF" -- or Authorization for Use of Military Force -- against ISIS, rather than continuing to wage war pursuant to the original 2001 AUMF against al Qaeda and its collaborators.

The hideous practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) is neither an exclusively Muslim nor a principally Middle Eastern phenomenon. It exists among non-Muslims through wide areas of Africa.

Seems the Iraqis don’t think the U.S. is pulling its weight in the fight with ISIS. As Ahmed Rasheed and Ned Parker of Reuters report:

Malak Ghobrial of Reuters is reporting that:

U.S. Army Col. Joel Rayburn, a senior research fellow at the National Defense University, is a historian who served as an adviser to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq. He is also author of Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance (Hoover Institution Press), a thorough account of what’s…

Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby, when asked Tuesday about the number of Islamic State (ISIL/ISIS) fighters killed in ongoing coalition strikes in Iraq and Syria, gave a rather colorful response: "[W]e don't have the ability to -- to count every nose that we schwack." Kirby said…

Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren addressed reporters Monday about the start of the U.S. military training mission of Iraqi and Kurdish forces in Iraq. According to Nick Simeone of DoD News, the Defense Department's own media unit, Warren said that "four battalions of Iraqi security forces…

Armies have always been vulnerable to epidemic disease.  And in the Middle East, history may be repeating itself.  There have been reports:

The U.S. bombed three Islamic State controlled buildings in Syria, according to video recently released by U.S. Central Command. Here's the video, titled "Airstrike against three ISIL buildings, Dec. 21, near Aleppo, Syria":

U.S. Central Command has released this video of an airstrike that took place December 18 on ISIS in Iraq:

Zeina Karam of AP writes that:

Jon Harper of Stars and Stripes reports that:

For lack of a Status of Forces agreement, the United States pulled virtually all of its military forces from Iraq in 2011.  Since then, the Iraq army has come close to collapse and large portions of the country have fallen under the control of ISIS.  The administration has dispatched American…

An ex-Guantanamo detainee based in northern Pakistan is leading an effort to recruit jihadists for the Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that controls large portions of Iraq and Syria.

The White House forwards this statement from the Pentagon press secretary on sending 1,500 more troops to Iraq:

If one objective of the bombing campaign in the Mideast was to stop – or, at least, reduce – the flow of fresh recruits to ISIS, then it has failed. As Greg Miller of the Washington Post reports

In the fight against ISIS in Iraq, Anbar province is decisive and to turn things around there:

Republican Scott Brown took issue with Democratic senator Jeanne Shaheen's characterization of the American military operations in the Middle East as an "occupying force" in the two candidates' final debate Thursday evening. The New Hampshire politicians were debating the use of U.S. troops against…

Paul McLeary of Defense News writes that the administration has a way of accounting for what went wrong in Iraq.  According to Deputy National Security Adviser Anthony Blinken (a rare "top administration official" willing to go on record):

James Jeffrey, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, tells Frontline that "everyone" warned the Obama administration about ISIS--and that they did nothing.

The ISIS campaign in Iraq proceeds where it cannot be seen and meets little resistance.  The U.S. says it has a plan by which government forces will go on the offense and retake lost territory … beginning in a few months.  Meanwhile, as Susannah George of FP reports:

Did Rand Paul just become a supporter of George W. Bush’s freedom agenda? “The world does not have an Islam problem,” Paul explained a few days ago. “The world has a dignity problem, with millions of men and women across the Middle East being treated as chattel by their own governments.” Such words…

Bill Roggio and Caleb Weiss write, at The Long War Journal, that:

Rear Admiral John Kirby appeared at a joint press briefing with spokesperson Jen Psaki at the State Department Thursday and addressed the ongoing airstrikes against the Islamic State (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria. As a number of Pentagon officials have done in recent weeks, Admiral Kirby downplayed the…

Loveday Morris, writing in the Washington Post about developments in Iraq’s Anbar Provence:

There is a shortage of drones in the theater where the U.S. is engaged against ISIS.  They are needed in another theater of operations, one where we do have troops engaged and are committed to getting them out.  As Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe reports:

The U.S. is running up against a shortage of surveillance drones to conduct reconnaissance of the various battlefields where it is engaged.  Right now, the theater where its combat troops are directly engaged is getting priority … as it most certainly should be.

CNN is reporting that:

Reuters is reporting that:

In an interview with Susan Page of USA Today, Leon Panetta says:

On Tuesday, September 23, the U.S. government announced that a new bombing campaign was under way in Syria. The Obama administration had been building the case for airstrikes for weeks. The president and his surrogates repeatedly highlighted the threat posed by the Islamic State (often called the…

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, said tonight that Americans fighting for the Islamic State in Syria are "entitled to come back" because they hold American citizenship:

Iowa Democrat Bruce Braley opposed funding any American military operations in Iraq this year—before he supported them. The three-term House member, who is running for Iowa's open Senate seat in one of the year's hottest races, touted his support for military action against ISIS in Iraq and Syria…

There is likely much gnashing of teeth in the intelligence community today in the wake of Obama’s interview with 60 Minutes last night. He laid the blame for the rise of the Islamic State at the feet of the intelligence community. “Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has…

America is “at a dangerous moment for our country and our friends,” said Scott Brown, the Republican candidate for Senate in New Hampshire, on Wednesday afternoon. In a speech at St. Anselm College near Manchester, Brown described the chaos that’s broken out across the world over the last year or…

Here's the text, as prepared for delivery, of President Obama's address to the United Nations General Assembly:

“Last night’s strikes were only the beginning,” Defense Department spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby told the Pentagon press corps.  More strikes can be “expected.”

The attacks on ISIS targets in Syria will do damage.  And the enemy may look for ways to retaliate.  Troubling news, in that regard comes from Justin Sink who writes in The Hill:

The U.S. launched airstrikes in Syria for the first time overnight. Much of the public discourse in the weeks leading up to the bombings focused on the Islamic State, a former branch of al Qaeda that has captured a significant amount territory across both Iraq and Syria. But the bombings are not…

Speaker of the House John Boehner supports President Obama's actions against ISIS. 

Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan

Although President Obama has been unequivocal that US forces will not return to Iraq for "boots on the ground" combat, some in his administration (Gen. Martin Dempsey, John Kerry, Joe Biden) have dropped hints that future events may change that. Friday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno joined…

President Obama announced this evening that France will join in bombing ISIS (also known as ISIL) in Iraq. 

President Obama addressed troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida on Wednesday regarding his strategy to "degrade and destroy ISIL," but also reminded the audience about his plans for the U.S. military in Afghanistan [emphasis added]:

Robert Burns of the AP reports that:

A New York man was indicted last night for helping ISIS, the terrorist army President Obama has pledged to "degrade" and "destroy."

Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times reports that ISIS:

In testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted that the most that could be done by way of creating an effective Free Syrian Army – that is, the forces of the moderate…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on why President Obama will have to put boots on the ground to defeat ISIS.

ISIS is a threat to world peace and the U.S. has reason, the president has said, to “degrade" and, then, to “destroy” it. The threat, for some, is much closer.  Right next door, in fact.  As Joel Greenberg of McClatchy reports:

We're at war. We're putting boots on the ground. We're not waiting around for the host nation's government to get its affairs in order, or for a regional coalition to commit first. The president has apparently overcome his reluctance to use the military, his worries about a commitment to intervene…

Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that to counter the ideology of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its claim of a "religious foundation" for its actions, part of the strategy of the international coalition he is attempting to assemble must be to "begin to put real Islam…

The Obama administration is behaving like a prisoner under interrogation: eventually, if unintentionally, it ends up talking most about the subjects it least wishes to discuss.

We have learned much about ISIS in the last few weeks, virtually all of it troubling. The CIA has upped its estimates of the number of ISIS fighters to something in the neighborhood of 30,000. And from Ken Dilanian of the AP we learn that through various methods, it can raise the money it needs to…

Barack Obama’s foreign policy is in shambles. He had a dream, expressed in Cairo, of “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,” of “a world where extremists no longer threaten our people.” So he got out of Iraq and failed to follow through in Libya, seeing no need for…

During a press conference on August 28, Barack Obama had a rare moment of candor. “We don’t have a strategy yet,” the president said in response to a question about the prospect of using military force against the Islamic State in Syria. Obama’s declaration drew widespread criticism, as the Islamic…

John Kerry argued that it doesn't really make a difference if we call U.S. action against ISIS a "war." He criticized the "tortured debate" this morning on CBS:

"A Strategy to Defeat the Islamic State," by Kimberly Kagan, Frederick W. Kagan, & Jessica D. Lewis. A must read for those contemplating how to win in the Middle East.

The White House now definitively says that the "U.S. is at with with ISIL," a position the Obama administration has been hesitant to state in the last couple days:

Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, writing about the Yemen and Somalia models for destroying ISIS:

Secretary of State John Kerry insists that we not call the thing by its proper name.  The “thing” being U.S. military actions against ISIS (or ISIL, if you wish) and the name being “war.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest couldn't define what victory against ISIS will look like. "I didn't bring my Webster's dictionary," he told a reporter.

In deciding how to destroy ISIS, President Obama has rejected the "best military advice." The advice was recently given to the commander in chief from his military leaders.

Michael Morrell, a former acting director of the CIA under Barack Obama, says that the strategy his old boss is using to go after ISIS in Syria does not have a high chance of being successful:

A largely overlooked posting on the White House's Twitter account the very day of the assault on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya in 2012 is a painful symbol of the president's portrayal of the world versus reality. Two hours after word first reached the White House, around the time…

In an address Wednesday night to the nation, President Obama held up America’s strategy in Yemen as a model for the counterterrorism strategy he intends to pursue in Iraq and Syria. By doing so, he committed to a strategy of targeting terrorists from the air and supporting local security forces in…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on President Obama's speech on his administration's strategy to take on ISIS.

President Obama just announced that he is bringing a counter-terrorism strategy to an insurgency fight. He was at pains to repeat the phrase “counter-terror” four times in a short speech. Noting that ISIL is not a state (partly because the international community thankfully does not recognize it),…

President Obama's remarks on destroying ISIS, as prepared for delivery:

Secretary of State John Kerry addressed the press in Baghdad, Iraq today before rushing off to a meeting in Amman, Jordan for "bilateral meetings with counterparts to discuss regional issues and the current situation in Iraq." Kerry said that tonight, President Obama "will lay out with great…

President Obama is scheduled to address the nation this evening to discuss destroying the terrorist army of ISIS. But before hitting the airwaves, he's asking Democratic donors to "chip in $10 or more right now to help elect Democrats."

Former Vice President Dick Cheney blasted President Obama in a speech today at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. Cheney blamed Obama for the "arbitrary and hasty withdrawal of residual forces from Iraq," which he said resulted in "the tragic error that gave us a caliphate."

President Obama is set to discuss his plan for confronting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in a primetime speech this evening. According to press reports, the president is ready to authorize the use of military strikes against the group in Syria. Thus far, American military action…

In a speech delivered this morning, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell blasts President Obama's foreign policy for making America weaker.

President Obama will address the nation Wednesday night in primetime. The subject? The plan for dealing with the Islamic State.

President Obama hosted "a private dinner with a group of foreign policy experts," the White House announced last night. Among them: Sandy Berger, who was caught stealing and destroying classified documents that related to President Clinton's record on terrorism issues.

On Wednesday, the eve of the thirteenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, President Obama will speak to the American people about his strategy for dealing with the rise of the Islamic State, the would-be caliphate bestriding Iraq and Syria, the most palpable and present threat to the region…

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist army many thousand strong now rampaging through the Levant, embraces such an extreme, violent ideology that it makes even al Qaeda squeamish, argue many Western experts. On this reading, al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri was forced to distance…

"Rooting out a cancer like ISIL won’t be easy and it won’t be quick,” President Obama told the American Legion’s annual convention in Charlotte on Tuesday, August 26. He repeated the thought in his pre-Labor Day weekend press conference on August 28. A week before, the day after the murder of James…

President Obama spoke about ISIS at length in his Meet the Press interview this morning, but he didn't offer much clarity as to what he's going to do about ISIS. One might say he's learned from bitter experience not to lay down red lines, and that he 's being purposefully vague. But I'm afraid the…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on why you shouldn't bet on President Obama using any muscle on his foreign policy.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on President Obama's recent remarks about making the terrorist group ISIS a "manageable problem."

State Department spokewoman Jen Psaki reiterated her boss's claim that ISIS must be "destroyed." But she wouldn't say when.

Steven Sotloff, an American journalist who was savagely beheaded by ISIS, was also an Israeli citizen. Paul Hirschson, an Israeli diplomat, says on Twitter: "Cleared for publication: Steven S[o]tloff was #Israel citizen RIP."

In a statement to the press, White House press secretary Josh Earnest announces 350 more troops to Iraq "to protect our diplomatic facilities and personnel in Baghdad, Iraq."

House Homeland Security Committee chair Michael McCaul said this afternoon on CNN that 100-200 Americans are currently fighting for ISIS in Iraq and Syria:

Amnesty International has found:

Writing in the New York Times over the weekend, Secretary of State Kerry argues forcefully for the creation of a strong and committed coalition of nations to resist and defeat ISIS. 

In the end, Jim Foley died just as he wanted to live, pursuing a story that mattered on the front line of hard news journalism. In Afghanistan, Libya, and finally Syria he recorded the horror, chaos, and occasional compassion that define the war on terror. But it was his gruesome killing on the…

On Tuesday, August 19, an American citizen, James Foley, was savagely killed. The group of jihadists known as ISIL had previously killed and brutalized tens of thousands of non-Americans. But they killed Foley because he was an American. They titled the grotesque video of this particular act of…

Josh Earnest appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe Friday in damage-control mode after President Obama's "we don't have a strategy yet" remark during his press conference on Thursday. Almost immediately after the president made the comment in response to a question by Chuck Todd, Earnest took…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on the President's speech on his non-existent ISIS policy in the Middle East.

After news broke this morning of Russia furthering its invasion of Ukraine, the White House announced that President Obama will meet with the National Security Council later this afternoon in the Situation Room: