BBC Radio: Britain To Join Airstrikes — But Does US Have a Plan?

I spoke with BBC Hereford and Worcestershire on Friday morning about the imminent authorization by Parliament of British airstrikes in Iraq.

That was the easy part of the interview. Far more difficult was assessing what happens next: while Britain will join a fairly well-defined US strategy to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces, there appears to be no idea — despite US airstrikes in Syria this week — where Washington and London head next amid the Islamic State, the Assad regime, and the Syrian insurgency.

Listen to interview from 1:40.36

The bad guys of the Islamic State are an easy thing to grasp….

What’s more interesting is the harder part. There is really no plan about hitting the Islamic State in Syria, where you have a complex crisis which also involves the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition that wants to remove it….

Indeed, the Assad regime in the last 48 hours has welcomed the attacks on the Islamic State because they have not only hurt the jihadists — it’s hurt the opposition and insurgents.

The US really doesn’t have a game plan for what it is doing in Syria.

(Featured Photo: British Prime Minister David Cameron with President Obama)