Obama Has Given up on Defeating ISIS

By Kimberly Dozier. Officially, the Obama administration is still committed to defeating ISIS. But at the annual gathering of national security chiefs in Aspen, no one was talking about beating the terror army and its adherents. Instead, grim resignation and dark warnings of a long hard fight to come dominated the discussion, with every official predicting a global rise in terror attacks, including in the United States. . .

It was a far cry from earlier gatherings of the Aspen Security Forum, where officials and experts hailed the killing of al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden as a death blow to Islamic extremism. And it was a markedly different tone from President Obama’s statements of just a few months ago, when he redoubled his commitment to “defeat [ISIS] and to eliminate the scourge of this barbaric terrorism that’s been taking place around the world.”

In contrast, national security officials at Aspen didn’t really speak of ISIS as an enemy that could be taken out. They talked about the terror group like a long-term problem to be managed—a chronic illness in the global body politic. (Read more from “Obama Has Given up on Defeating ISIS” HERE)

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Moqtada Al Sadr and His Followers in Iraq Are ‘Thirsty for Americans’ Blood’

By Andrew Tilghman. For the first time in years, the Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr and his militia are unleashing fiery anti-American rhetoric and threatening to attack U.S. troops . . .

Sadr rose to prominence when his Mahdi Army battled U.S. troops after the 2003 invasion. He has quietly tolerated the comparatively small U.S. military force there now supporting the war on Islamic State extremists. But the powerful cleric became confrontational again after Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced plans on July 11 to send an additional 560 U.S. troops to Iraq, bringing the total to more than 4,600.

“They are a target for us,” Sadr said in a post on his official website on July 17.

A few days later, an official spokesman for Sadr’s militia, Alaa Abboud, echoed the threat.

“We are thirsty for Americans’ blood,” Abboud told a prominent Iraqi television news channel. (Read more from “Moqtada Al Sadr and His Followers in Iraq Are ‘Thirsty for Americans’ Blood'” HERE)

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