A Quote by Crispin Blunt

Having western, Russian or Iranian forces providing the ground defeat of Isis would certainly work militarily, but would be the least attractive option as it might help reinforce the Isis myth.
Constraint theory argues a number of things. First, that the impossible has to be identified. Second, that the actor is then constrained by circumstances to act a certain way. For example, should we invade ISIS? Can we invade ISIS? What would it take to invade ISIS? Once you ask that question you discover the price of that option and then you take a look at American politics and see that the country is probably not prepared to invest the 2 to 3 million people that it would take to defeat ISIS and the insurgency afterwards. All right, so that's not going to happen.
ISIS has brought down a Russian airliner. ISIS has now attacked a western democracy in - in France. And we do have a role in this. Not solely ours, but we must work collaboratively with other nations.
ISIS is a formidable foe, but the counter forces to it have only just begun and if these forces, the Iraqi army, the Kurdish Peshmerga, American air power, the Syrian Free Army, work in a coordinated fashion, it will start losing ground. Also, please keep in mind that ISIS does not actually hold as much ground as the many maps flashed on television keep showing. Large parts of those territories that ISIS supposedly controls are vacant desert.
If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened. ISIS would have been eradicated, unlike what is happening now with our all-talk-no-action politicians.
If you put two brigades on the ground right now with U.S. forces, they would push ISIS back into Syria in a heartbeat.
We saw that, as Syrian troops went to Aleppo, ISIS took Palmyra. But ISIS' days are numbered. The Donald Trump administration has said that they're going to concentrate on ISIS and they're going to work with Russia. Now, we don't know whether they really will work with Russia or not, but it's clear that ISIS is going to be pounded.
It's important that we keep our priorities straight. And we believe that the first priority is the defeat of ISIS. That by defeating ISIS and removing their caliphate from their control, we've now eliminated at least or minimized a particular threat not just to the United States, but to the whole stability in the region.
Let me begin by saying that we have to understand who ISIS is. ISIS is a radical Sunni group. They cannot just be defeated through air strikes. Air strikes are a key component of defeating them, but they must be defeated on the ground by a ground force. And that ground force must be primarily made up of Sunni Arabs themselves, Sunni Arabs that reject them ideologically and confront them militarily.
A defeat for ISIS in Iraq will be defeat for ISIS in Syria.
We have a duty to fight ISIS; air operations alone will not defeat ISIS.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan would be considered a gradualist. He is not decreeing Sharia as the law of the land tomorrow. He’s making gradual steps to desecularize the country so it’s not a shock to everyone, doesn’t cause all kinds of panic in the western world and the Europe world. And ISIS might be growing impatient. Even though they’ve been allied over oil and Syria, ISIS could be growing impatient. Then they see the deal with Israel, and they say, “To hell with this.”
Assad's regime helped ISIS grow by attacking other opposition forces and rarely targeting ISIS.
Russia wants to defeat ISIS as badly as America does. If we had a relationship with Russia, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could work on it together and knock the hell out of ISIS? Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing?
Our mission to defeat ISIS has been slowed down by the need to defend from additional Iranian attacks.
You would carpet bomb where ISIS is, not a city, but the location of the troops. You use air power directed - and you have embedded special forces to direction the air power. But the object isn't to level a city. The object is to kill the ISIS terrorists.
We have to be willing to engage ISIS militarily, economically, and even on the Internet without delay. For instance, I think we waited too long to engage al-Qaida and the Taliban in Pakistan. And we should not make a similar mistake with ISIS elements throughout the world.
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