In the Muddle of the Middle East
The White House's credibility isn't the only thing suffering from the President's Middle East failures -- so are tens of thousands of innocent people. They are the real casualties of the administration's indifference toward the religious persecution that's raging in the region. Even now, after a week of U.S. airstrikes, our own military is unconvinced that the President's eleventh-hour strategy is an effective replacement for the American intervention that should have taken place all along.In a brutal assessment of the situation, Army Lt. Gen. William Mayville warned that even with the U.S.'s involvement, "I in no way want to suggest that we have effectively contained or that we are somehow breaking the momentum of the IS (Islamic State). The strikes are unlikely to affect (IS's) overall capabilities or its operations in other areas of Iraq and Syria," he explained, describing the effect as "very temporary." If anything, IS is showing its ability to adapt, military leaders say, and are moving to hide among village people, where they know they're less vulnerable to U.S. attacks.
