Well, truth is, he is right. Winning militarily might even be the smallest problem, though
this article gives some interesting perspective on why that might be overt optimism.
The problem is, too many hawkish minded people think that kicking ISIS' butt would solve anything. But the problem lies much deeper and must be addressed by both the West and the Middle Eastern societies: How to fight the fundamentalism and deep divisions within societies that let groups like ISIS thrive? And for that, a strategy indeed seems a long ways ahead.
All the while, the need of the people seeking refuge in the Kurdish areas is still extraordinary. Some 1.5 million people are living there now. In Duhok, the third largest city of Kurdistan, there are now more IDPs and refugees than inhabitant. Most of the people of Sinjar have flocked there. Every free space has turned a refugee location. The schools are all refugee shelters, but summer holidays end on Sep. 12. By November or December, temperatures will drop and snowfall is going to set in in that region.
We (
Welcome to the Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights) have now had two distributions of aid, once water and ice to mainly Christian refugees in Erbil, and another time food and hygiene kits to mostly Yezidi families in and around Duhok. We even could deliver two air conditioners to families in the town Chamchamal (itself mainly made up of Kurdish persons who got permanently displaced in the Anfal genocide of the 1980s) which provide some cool air in the extremely hot city, and can provide some heat in the winter. Next step is going to distribute more of this, along with medication and then psychosocial services.
It should nonetheless be forgotten that this is all tied in in the ongoing war in Syria. Back in 2011 already, Assad's regime reportedly released Islamists fighters from its prison, while warning the world that helping the rebels would mean helping jihadists. In other words, it created its own self-fulfilling prophecy. Tellingly, Assad's military hardly ever targeted ISIS in Raqqa, in the east of Syria. This way, ISIS could thrive and carry out more attacks, making itself a name alongside al-Nusra, and thus making people outside the country believe the rebels really are Islamists fighting there, while Assad could concentrate on the moderate rebels, civillians, and ultimately even gas Damascus neighbourhoods and get away with it.
Two days ago, the UN officially counted three million Syrian refugees, plus about 6.5 to 7 million internally displaced, and almost 200,000 people killed. All numbers are rather conservative estimates. This renders the current refugee crisis the largest operation in UNHCR's history. There is an interesting project trying to put this war in perspective, called "If we were Syrian". Since most here come from the US, I thought of taking the US as example of the impact:
America | If We Were Syrian
