WORLD_ Listen to the Americans: you can't defeat Isil without ground troops

The Telegraph

Listen to the Americans: you can't defeat Isil without ground troops

By Con Coughlin World Last updated: September 17th, 2014
203 Comments Comment on this article

*** Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence Editor and a world-renowned expert on global security and terrorism issues. He is the author of several critically acclaimed books. His new book, Churchill's First War: Young Winston and the fight against the Taliban, is published by Macmillan in London and Thomas Dunne Books in New York. He appears regularly on radio and television in Britain and America. ***


I've been saying it for weeks – you can't defeat Isil without putting boots on the ground. And now US General Martin Dempsey, the head of the American Armed Forces, has confirmed what anyone with a reasonable understanding of what is required to defeat Isil knows, that some form of Western ground forces will be needed if this threat is to be fully destroyed.

I am not saying that we need another 2003-style military invasion. That conflict was completely different to the one we now face. Overthrowing Saddam's regime required a conventional state-on-state military operation. The campaign to destroy Isil will be more akin to how we approached the initial invasion of Afghanistan in 2001: Western forces working in conjunction with pro-Western allies such as the Northern Alliance – or France's military intervention in Mali last year, where a French brigade was deployed to deal with the al-Qaeda threat to the north of the country before handing over to African forces to keep the peace.

This should be the template for dealing with Isil, with American, British and other Western ground forces providing practical assistance to local Iraq groups such as the Kurds' Peshmerga fighters. By having our own troops involved, we can help to direct the campaign, as well as making sure that the Isil threat is completely eliminated.

But to do that ministers must get over their irrational hang ups about putting British boots on the ground.

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