As the row over David Cameron saying that the Joint Intelligence Committee estimate there to be 70,000 potential anti-Islamic State fighters in Syria showed, the big question mark about the West’s anti-IS strategy is who will provide the ground troops for it. The Kurds will only fight in their own area and so far, there is little sign of a credible Sunni force emerging to take on Islamic State. While working with Assad has its own drawbacks. (In many ways, the existence of IS–albeit, in weakened form–suits his interests.)
David Ignatius details just how wrong US efforts to train up Sunni fighters have gone in the past year in Washington Post:
In Iraq, U.S. trainers were dispatched to Al
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