National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, has an excellent piece on ISIL and U.S. strategy to counter it. He writes, “Obama’s new strategy fails on every significant count. It fails to appreciate that the threat is directly to the United States, not just to the Middle East and North Africa. If focuses obsessively on the Islamic State, which, though significant, is only one part of a far more imposing Islamic-supremacist threat. It neglects al Qaeda, which will be strengthened by Obama’s aerial attacks on IS and the military support provided for al Qaeda’s ‘moderate Islamist’ allies on the ground (see, e.g., the Long War Journal report [last week] from Lisa Lundquist: ”‘Moderate’ Syrian Revolutionaries Front continues to support al Qaeda“). It ludicrously suggests that we can delegate the responsibility for defending American national security to the Iraqi military (which only recently abandoned its positions upon being routed by Islamic State forces) and the rabidly anti-American Muslim Brotherhood – the backbone of what the administration and many Republicans call the ‘moderate Syrian opposition’ (to avoid the embarrassment of saying the words ‘Muslim Brotherhood’). And it ignores the essential maestro’s role played by Iran and other state sponsors of the jihad.” The whole thing is well worth reading.