This analysis was originally published on The Conversation:

The Ministers from 21 countries gathered in London on Thursday to discuss the fight against the Islamic State. They had their photo opportunity and issued their statements. US Secretary of State John Kerry (pictured) told them that almost 6,000 jihadists had been killed and almost 700 square kilometers of Iraqi territory had been retaken.

And, at the end of the day, all of this had precious little to do with the issue of how to confront the political, military, and social expansion of the Islamic State.

None of the officials from the 21 countries would state the obvious: without a determined strategy to challenge the Islamic State on the ground as well as from the air in Syria and in Iraq, the best that can be achieved is “containment” of the jihadists. And none acknowledged that, without a long-term approach to deal with deep-set political grievances in both countries, the Islamic State will continue to appeal — as a movement, as an ally, or as an expedient — to many people.

SUCCESS AGAINST THE ISLAMIC STATE SINCE AUGUST IN IRAQ?

Certainly the US-led aerial intervention from August in Iraq has checked the advance of the jihadists. It bolstered Kurdish forces as the Islamic State neared the Iraqi Kurdistan capital of Erbil. It has assisted those forces in retaking some key positions, such as the Mosul Dam, and recapturing some areas of northwest Iraq.

However, the success of the Iraqi military, after last summer’s near-collapse, in the east, west, and south is more to do with Iranian support and the rise of Shia militias than with any US-led operations. At best, Washington has tacitly accepted that Baghdad’s security depends more on Tehran and the Shia groups than on a US strategy.

Kerry’s boasting of thousands of Islamic State bodies — almost half of the estimated jihadist force — kicked dust over this reality. Indeed, even before the statement, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was dampening it: “I was in a war [in Vietnam] where we did body counts and we lost that one.”

Nor did Kerry admit that his proclamation had little to do with long-term resolution in Iraq, such as a stable government dealing with corruption, allegations of represssion, and the suspicions of the Sunni minority of a Shia-led system. If anything, the rise of the militias — accused like the Islamic State of abuses against the population — is likely to add to the real challenge.

AVOIDING REALITY IN SYRIA

The situation is even more fraught in Syria. Kerry could brag that US-led bombing has held the Kurdish town of Kobane, near the Turkish border, hold out against three months of Islamic State attacks. But meanwhile the Islamic State has expanded its hold on territory in much of northern and eastern Syria, taking on both the Assad regime and Syrian opposition forces. It is still secure in its center of Raqqa, the largest city outside regime control, establishing a local government, administration, and economy. The jihadists control most of Syria’s oil and gas fields.

The blunt reality is that, beyond a limited case such as Kobane, there can be no effective campaign against the Islamic State without support of a local military force on the ground. However, since last summer — indeed, for years before that, when the issue was the fight against the Assad regime — the Obama Administration has balked over that support. It has done no more than provided a drip-feed of limited supplies to a handful of “moderate” insurgents, refusing to take essential measures even after the Assad regime’s chemical weapons attacks of August 2013.

Instead of grasping the nettle, Washington authorized $500 million last autumn for a token program to train and equip 5,000 “moderate” fighters to face the Islamic State. The training will not begin until late March at the earliest, and the first batch of fighters will not be ready for the battlefield before the end of 2015.

Indeed, the key shift in US policy this month has more to do with the Assad regime than the Islamic State. In the last week, Kerry has retracted the long-term American position that President Assad must eventually give up power in a transitional government. With that retraction, the dim prospect of any strategy on the ground — unless the US decides to ally with the regime’s forces — disappears.

MUCH ADO ABOUT “JIHADISTS OVER HERE”

Instead of confronting the difficulties in Iraq and Syria, the US and its allies have chosen the distraction of “jihadists over here”. Acknowledgement of the political, economic, and social situation that fostered the rise of the Islamic State — and of the measures need to deal with that situation — is replaced with constant proclamations about extremists who will return from the Middle East to wreak havoc in Europe and the US.

The threat of attacks “over here” is not to be dismissed, as this month’s events in Paris illustrated. However, those attacks are not as much the orchestrated campaigns of an Islamic State or an Al Qa’eda or “radical Islam” as much as they are the violence of individuals whose anger has been fed by the turmoil in areas such as Iraq and Syria.

It is far easier for not only the US Government but also mainstream media, analysts, and pundits to devote themselves to tales of “foreign fighters” and “jihadology” rather than to expend energy on the causes and courses of the Iraqi and Syrian conflicts. The alternatives that could really challenge the Islamic State — a defined long-term status for Iraqi Kurdistan, an Iraqi Government answering to the concerns of all communities, a Syrian opposition supported in a political vision that overcomes not only the jihadists but a regime that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions — are tucked away behind the diversions.