MESOP TOP OF THE AGENDA : COALITION DEFENSE CHIEFS DISCUSS CHALLENGES OF ISIS / PLUS COMMENTARIES BY BBC / CFR / NYT / AFP / AP & MORE

Representatives from more than thirty countries are in Washington to discuss contingency plans in the event that the self-proclaimed Islamic State strongholds of Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, fall in the coming months (NYT). U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said that the biggest concern was that governance and stabilization efforts would lag behind the military campaign (AP). French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said his country would increase support to Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga forces and strengthen its cooperation (Medill) with the United States. UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said he would double UK troops in Iraq to five hundred (BBC). Meanwhile in Syria, U.S.-backed rebels issued an ultimatum for Islamic State fighters to leave the city of Manbij in forty-eight hours (AFP), and the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition called for a suspension of the U.S. anti-Islamic State bombing campaign following reports of dozens of civilian deaths around Manbij (Reuters).

ANALYSIS

“Even as the officials were mapping out the day-after scenarios, they faced a bigger question, particularly in the aftermath of an attempted coup in Turkey and an attack the Islamic State says it inspired in France: Is the United States-led coalition winning the battle but losing the larger war?” Helene Cooper writes for the New York Times.

“Another question is, what do we mean by defeated? ISIS fighters are leaving cities, but are still in the deserts of Anbar, Salahuddin province, and the mountains of Diyala. They can wage an insurgency for years to come. If there’s no solution for the different sides to live together under a workable governing system, Iraq risks a future in which once again an uprising will take away land from the state, just as in June 2014, when cities were swept up in an uprising that ISIS either spearheaded or stole, depending on how you define it. Whether it’s in the name of ISIS or some other radical group, it promises only more violence and bloodshed for the country,” Ned Parker says in this CFR interview.

“Americans and the British are not lacking for old arguments, but they are lacking creative and realistic thinking about Iraq. When Iraqi forces liberated Fallujah in late June, there was a palpable sense of relief that—once again—Iraqis and Americans had ‘turned a corner.’ The good news continued over the weekend when the Iraqis drove Islamic State fighters from an airbase near Mosul, but haven’t people learned anything by now? Turning a corner in Iraq invariably means walking into another nightmare,” writes CFR’s Steven A. Cook.