Even though most of America had never heard of the militant group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria just six months ago, U.S. military forces are now engaged in a conflict with ISIS that many experts believe will be a long, hard fight.
The latest person to express this view is former Defense Secretary and CIA Director in the Obama administration, Leon Panetta, who was very candid in his views during a recent interview with USA Today reporter Susan Page.
“I think the president was right to take us to war against ISIS, to pledge that we will disrupt and hopefully defeat them as well,” Panetta said in the interview. “Because if we don’t, at least in my view, if they establish a base of operations in that part of the world, it’s only a matter of time before they will then use it as a base from which to attack this country.”
He was asked to give a prediction on the length on the war on ISIS – which so far has been limited in scope and doesn’t include group troops. “I think we’re looking at kind of a 30-year war… in which it’s going to take a long time to be able to go after these elements.”
While President Barack Obama has insisted that he has no plans to send “boots on the ground” to fight against ISIS, others have suggested there is no other way to effectively deal with the Islamic militant group.
Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept pointed out that other prominent Democrats are also expressing the view that the war against ISIS will be anything but quick.
“Then we have Hillary Clinton at an event in Ottawa, she proclaimed that the fight against these ‘militants’ will ‘be a long-term struggle’ that should entail an ‘information war’ as ‘well as an air war.’ The new war, she said, is ‘essential’ and the U.S. shies away from fighting it ‘at our peril,’” he said.
Greenwald added: “Any doubts about whether Endless War - literally - is official American doctrine should be permanently erased.”
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