The Us needs to shift from confronting our enemies directly to indirectly by sponsoring proxies backed by US intel/firepower. That is how Iran and Saudi Arabia is attacking the US presense in Iraq. Our proxies in the Middle East will be the Kurds, Shiites who do not support Sadr, Sunnis in Anbar Province of Iraq, non Muslim blacks in Sudan, non Arab Muslim blacks in Sudan, Ethiopia, the Somali warlords who oppose Jihadist Somalis, and free Aghans all willing to pick up a rifle and fight the our enemies in the Middle East asssuming we are willing to send the experts and weapons.
I agree whole-heartedly. I would go further. The war against the Islamists will be won, decades in the future, by American Muslims promoting an alternative, more desirable future for their co-religionists. We are in a very early of this war. In order to win, we must fight the war on our terms on battlefields of our choosing. Our strengths are pinrcipally ideological, technological, and economic. In time, Iraq, like Vietnam, will be remembered as a diversion from successful war fighting. Ronald Reagan identified the Soviet Union's fatal flaw: The Communist system didn't work, and he exploited that weakness. A future more imaginative U.S. President who exploit the Islamists' weakness: They have no vision for a better future for Islamic peoples. Reagan didn't invade Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union: He didn't have to. It collapsed. Similarly, using Christian and Jewish Americans to invade Muslim countries is not a winning strategy.