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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Petraeus: Ground Forces Needed in Syria to Defeat ISIS
2015-11-12
[PJ Media] Gen. David Petraeus said the United States has to have a ground force in Syria if its goal is to defeat the Islamic State.
The loyal regime champion listens and responds.
"I think that the limiting factor all along in Syria has been the absence of a Sunni Arab moderate force that we could support. The fact is, I don't care what your objective is in Syria, if your objective is that Bashar must go, you have to have a Sunni Arab force that's going to get him to go," the former CIA director said at the Brookings Institution during a discussion about Michael O'Hanlon's book The Future of Land Warfare.

"If your objective is to get to the diplomatic table, and we're there now, to a degree, you have to have a military context. There is no military solution, as everyone is fond of saying. There is a military context that has to be established without which no one is going to go to the negotiating table, or at least they won't negotiate seriously. And by the way, if you want to degrade and defeat the Islamic State and the al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Khorasan Group, the al-Qaeda element sent there for establishment of a cell in Northern Syria, you're going to have to have a ground force."

Despite his emphasis on the need for ground forces, Petraeus said the U.S. military is able to do a lot with air capabilities.

"It's very, very important to note that our capabilities now are just so vastly greater than when we did the fight to Baghdad. The armada of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft that we have over the skies in Iraq and Syria is just breathtaking," he said.
No General, actually what is 'breathtaking' is your sycophantic adoration and loyalty to Obama and his puppeteers. But of course you have been well compensated and your shameless reemergence bodes quite well for current violators of national security. Your recognition of JSOC must have been a difficult pill to swallow, but I suppose highlighting their obvious limitations will be viewed by other gov't agencies as an enabler.
Many of the people Stalin executed professed to love him and confessed their sins at their show trials...
Posted by:Besoeker

#8  Mad respect to Gen. Petraeus, TopRev, but I think there is a feeling among many that he got himself stuck, whether by carelessness or a honey-trap of his own making, and is now spouting the company line. I don't see him doing that here.

IMHO, this is the key 'graph:
“If your objective is to get to the diplomatic table, and we’re there now, to a degree, you have to have a military context. There is no military solution, as everyone is fond of saying. There is a military context that has to be established without which no one is going to go to the negotiating table, or at least they won’t negotiate seriously.

I am reminded of Gen. Mattis's "I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all.". Without the stick, the carrots just encourage them.
Posted by: SteveS   2015-11-12 23:13  

#7  With respect, Besoeker, and most commenters: you are being unfair to Petraeus and de-contextual with regard to his audience, as pure an anti-national sovereignty group of Globalists as one could find in the USA. Bookings is the sanctimonious face of modern Communist/Globalist/Islam/Democrat-Republican/Progressive post-modern, deconstructed, post-nationalsm. They want USA gone, damn it, GONE, and replaced with just them as all-worthy, unquestioned "practitioners."

Ask yourself why Petraeus would agree to speak to such a gathering. He does not need to. Ask yourself why he agreed to teach for $1/year at CUNY, and get hounded by Commies: http://theological-geography.net/?p=3971

At Brookings he was addressing THEM and their anti-American pretensions and saying what those pretentious involve practically if they are to amount to anything more than hot air and rampant misery. He said no one is going to negotiate outside a military context, aka bad guys are made an offer they cannot refuse. What is more true?

Dave Petraeus has that rare gift of seeing the large picture with all of its moving parts. He is one or two in a generation. The new CJCS may be another such. Anyhow, the gift is rare. And admiration for Petraeus in the Armed Forces, especially the Army, could not be higher.

I am astonished at the febrile expostulations of so many here and at the PJMedia original. Taking Petraeus as a regime champion, a toady, is bathetic, not worthy of these sanctums.
Posted by: TopRev   2015-11-12 21:54  

#6  To cut down Daesh, the key is it's roots in Iraq.

You lost your state of play in Syria - so to speak.
Posted by: newc   2015-11-12 18:56  

#5  The Obamagenda is this fundamental transformation of the USA. Middle East chaos is merely collateral damage, an unforeseen side effect, mere piffle.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2015-11-12 14:30  

#4  First they said Saddam must go and Iraq became a mess. Then they said Hosni had to go and it was damn lucky that al Sisi was there to pick up the pieces. Then it was Qdaffy and now Libya is in a state of civil war. Then Bashar......If I didn't know better I'd begin to believe that Baraq's objective is to achieve chaos throughout the Middle East.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2015-11-12 14:27  

#3  "if your objective is that Bashar must go" and nothing else, start over again. That objective will prove counterproductive, as has been proven several times in recent history.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2015-11-12 14:11  

#2  the former CIA director said at the Brookings Institution

"Preaching to the choir" takes on a particular poignancy here.
Posted by: Pappy   2015-11-12 12:51  

#1  The general doesn't say where he's going to find these moderate Sunni Arabs who are willing to fight Baraq's war. Most likely because they prefer to invade Europe. At least the general is not suggesting that we need American boots on the ground. Even Baraq knows better than that. So is all that money we're spending on all those "breathtaking" aerial capabilities gonna be nothing but target practice for our pilots?

Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2015-11-12 12:11  

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