Defeat ISIS with troops, bombs and drones

The latest sickening and ghoulish murder by the butchers who falsely call themselves the Islamic State/Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), who are not an Islamic state of Iraq, Syria or anywhere else based on any true faith of Islam, dramatizes yet again what must be done. After this latest barbarism against a Jordanian prisoner, this must now be clear to all.

The coalition bombing must be supplemented by a rapid deployment force of at least 15,000 special operations troops composed in equal measure of Americans, Europeans and citizens of Arab League states. There is absolutely no way to dismantle and destroy the infrastructure of the terrorist state now controlling territory of major parts of Iraq and Syria without at least 15,000 ground troops.

I opposed the Iraq war initiated by President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney strongly and without equivocation from the beginning. But ISIS is different, this kind of terrorism is different, this is a war that must be fought and can only be won with at least a limited special ops multinational force working in concert with ongoing bombing.

This is a hard decision, but one which must be made. I have written about this publicly, and advised this privately, and repeat this again today. We need not and should not send a large invasion force as happened in Iraq, but we should and must create a special operations ground force including some 15,000 troops representing the United States, Europe and Arab League nations.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. Contact him at brentbbi@webtv.net.