Long Air War Over Iraq, Syria Foreseen
Several more nations have joined the coalition. The U.S. and most Western allies have ruled out the deployment of ground troops.
The aircraft carrier USS George H W Bush is escorted by a UK Royal Navy Type 41 destroyer in the Gulf last week. The U.S. Navy says that it has conducted about 25 percent of the airstrikes over Iraq and Syria. (Photo: MoD Crown Copyright 2014)
The aircraft carrier USS George H W Bush is escorted by a UK Royal Navy Type 41 destroyer in the Gulf last week. The U.S. Navy says that it has conducted about 25 percent of the airstrikes over Iraq and Syria. (Photo: MoD Crown Copyright 2014)

American-led airstrikes over Iraq and Syria will likely continue for many months, and cannot alone fix the long-term problem of eliminating Islamic State (IS) insurgents, the Pentagon press spokesman admitted yesterday. U.S. Defense Department spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said that there is no “willing, capable, effective partner on the ground inside Syria,” and the same is essentially true in northern Iraq, outside Kurdish-controlled areas, after the collapse of the Iraqi army there. Kirby called for “strategic patience,” claiming that the Iraqi security forces are “developing plans” to retake lost territory.