The Jihadists are already vowing retribution, according to SITE, the pro-Israeli "intelligence" propaganda website that is relaying all of their videos, no doubt to frighten us more.
Washington claims support from 40 nations. The Christian Science Monitor reports, "Americans can be forgiven if this reminds them of the "coalition of the willing" President George W. Bush claimed to have when the US invaded and occupied Iraq 11 years ago."
Adds political scientist Michael Brenner: -- the so-called "coalition of the willing" will not amount to much except for its contribution of money to anti-IS forces of various hues, and the aforementioned American airstrikes. So long as no regional states are prepared to send in competent troops, their military role will be marginal at best. In regard to drying up IS' supply of recruits from places beyond Syria and Iraq, the prospects are not promising."
How fast we've moved from peace to war, from hope to despair.
Of course, like so many reports about US military action, there was no mention of civilian casualties or other "collateral damage." It was assumed by a press that marches in lockstep with the Pentagon that the strikes were surgical, hit their targets and damaged an enemy that earlier in the week released a video almost inviting such a strike, perhaps to show how bad and powerful they claimed to be.
On the Tuesday, The New York Times, to its credit, called the attacks "risky" and reported that "after six weeks of western air support in Iraq, Iraqi forces have barely budged Islamic State fighters."
The government refused to estimate what all this would cost. And of course, there was this political calculation driving the turn to war, as revealed by Politico:
"With his new offensive against Islamic State terrorists in Syria, Barack Obama has a chance to revive his presidency, but the only way he can do that is to become a brand-new president, one who will be almost unrecognizable to his supporters. Obama must go from being the president who was elected to end wars--his most treasured self-image--to the president who finally leads one effectively. And he must now do it in two countries where for most of his presidency he has most resisted getting more deeply involved--Iraq and Syria."
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