Did you know that we dropped more bomb tonnage on our enemy in Vietnam than we did in WWII? And we lost. Because war from the air is just part of the way to victory.
Plenty of local infantry, including the Kurds, the Shiites and the Syrian Alawites, available to hold territory. Their problem is Sunni Arabs with heavy weaponry (AA guns, artillery, tanks, heavy machine guns, anti-tank weapons, MANPADS). North Vietnam was being supplied by China and Russia. We can crush Turkey's and Jordan's economies with a total trade embargo if they continue supplying the rebels. Bottom line is that ISIS are a bunch of midgets puffed up by a hysterical media, mainly because two of theirs had their heads chopped off. But that's all right. If it helps flip the Senate, I'm a happy camper.