Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said during an interview on Wednesday that the Obama administration’s goal was not to “contain” but rather “degrade and destroy” ISIS.
During the interview with CNN’s Jim Sciutto, Hagel said ISIS had to be destroyed because “if we don’t destroy it, it will get worse.”
While Hagel told Sciutto he couldn’t vow that ISIS would be destroyed over just being ‘contained’ or ‘degraded,’ he did say this:
“We will do everything possible that we can do to destroy their capacity to inflict harm on our people and western values and our interests.”
Watch the video below, via CNN:
Yeah. The ship sailed on containment when Baby Bush decided to smash the container. This is well and truly now a problem that needs to be dealt with. While I believe we need to be winning hearts and minds, I also believe that when the house is on fire you call the fire department. Hopefully that means backing a proxy force that can truly create inroads on the battlefield without having our DNA all over it. And hopefully that force does not engage in the sort of atrocities that ISIS engages in. And hopefully a political solution will fill in over time that is more palatable than ISIS and the previous “container”
Good for Hagel. The way I read that, containing ISIS would mean boots on the ground for an indefinite period of time, which is what the neocons and stenographers in the press seem to be advocating for and filling the airways with lately. Containment requires our constant presence back in Iraq to monitor and maintain troops on the ground as force protection against hostilities towards civilian populations by ISIS. I don’t believe that’s in the cards.
I think this administration’s objective will be to bomb the hell out of them with actionable intelligence provided by allies (hopefully with the help of Arab states that have been all too complacent to date), thereby degrading the leadership and capacity to advance on further territory. Sounds like a plan. No more long term entanglements.
Lotta hopefullys there. Kinda like trying to use powder musket.
Sounds to me like they might have a strategy. Only this one is being carefully thought out. Probably even has an exit plan.
Yeah, well. I’m just being realistic. Our history suggests this may actually be getting thrown around as serious policy among those who will decide.