Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[TheCurmudgeon]

Here is something I can agree with:

13.The greatest short- or medium-term aid to this will be open western military intervention in any form, even if restricted primarily to the use of armed drones.
14.Any such intervention will aid their propagandising the process as the “far enemy” at work again. Such a process would be greatly aided by any Israeli action in Syria – a return to the effective propaganda of 2003-6 when Israeli aid for the US operations in Iraq (little acknowledged in the West but well-known in the region) made it possible to propagandise the “Crusader-Zionist plot” to great effect.
15.ISIL may well act to incite Western military intervention. Any such intervention would be a grave mistake.

http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.u...aq_crisis_note

As the article notes, they can only maintain their territorial gains if they can build an army beyond what they have now (estimated at 10,000). Recruiting through propaganda will be key. We should offer them no moral victory by being the target of western aggression.