What About Gaza? What About State-Sponsors?

Submitted by Alex (United States), Apr 6, 2015 at 16:42

Dr. Pipes comments are as edifying as ever, but I would raise two objections:

1) What of those instances--say, the recent Israeli use of ground forces into Gaza for Operation Protective Edge last Summer--where infantry and cavalry did not acheive or even aim for victory?

2) What of a place like Falluja, Iraq, where US ground forces in late 2004 were able to retake a terrorist stronghold, yet which today remains a hotbed for jihadists? Wouldn't attacking state-sponsors of terrorism with conventional force--even just major airstrikes on key industrial and military sites--be a more effective way to end insurgency as a threat beyond the very acute immediate theater where it is based? My idea would be to have the US strike say, an Iranian Qods-force base inside Iran every time we find proof of Iranian complicity in attacking US interests, with the condtion that Iran could only avoid more such incidents if it killed or handed over any anti-American operatives known to be present where an insurgent attack took place, or any plotting such attacks in the future.

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