MESOP TODAYS ANALYSIS „HOW TO FIGHT IS“? – BY „FOREIGN POLICY“ – AL ARABIYA & AL JAZEERA

“U.S. civilian leaders need to encourage the Pentagon to do better—but at the same time, America’s military leaders need to think more creatively about how to speed up the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq. Big units and big programs should give way to more targeted assistance and innovation in niche areas, perhaps involving a greater role for solutions crafted by the U.S. special operations forces community. Iraq’s leaders would welcome most, if not all, of these ideas. Quick, affordable battlefield innovation is in the DNA of the U.S. military,” writes Michael Knight in Foreign Policy.

“Blaming the U.S. for the rise of ISIS or waiting for its airstrikes to destroy the group is a fool’s errand, and misunderstands both the strengths and weaknesses of the ‘Caliphate’. Unless the political, financial and ideological contingents that are behind the surge of ISIS are addressed, the debate over its ‘pandemic’ will be with us for a long time,” writes Joyce Karam in Al-Arabiya.

“ISIL not only took advantage of this Arab Sunni discontent, it also created a model of governance that repudiated those corrupt practices of the Iraqi state. ISIL has sought legitimacy among Iraqis by ending those extractive policies and by delivering services. While ISIL probably leverages its ‘citizens’ to give these rosy assessments of its administration, their complaints of their former Iraqi government have been echoed by Iraqis within Iraq itself,” writes Ibrahim al-Marashi in Al Jazeera.