WASHINGTON, August 22 (RIA Novosti) - Countering and conquering the Islamic State group (IS) is a long-term project that will require more than just military response, and the United States should not handle it alone, a national security lawyer Bradley Moss said.
"Countering and defeating it will take more than just responding militarily, although that should be done swiftly and decisively,” Moss told RIA Novosti on Thursday.
The expert said that undermining its recruiting and funding sources will require continued development of stable and representative governing institutions across the Middle East that can address societal needs through the political process rather than through violence.
"That remains a long-term project that the United States should not have to handle alone," Moss concluded.
The Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), is a Sunni group that has been fighting in Syria against the country’s president, Bashar Assad, and launched an offensive in Iraq in June. Then, they announced the establishment of a caliphate on the territory they control.
The United States has carried out targeted airstrikes against the Islamic State since the beginning of August. The operation is aimed at protecting US personnel in the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region Erbil, as well as preventing the “genocide” of Iraqi religious minorities.
Although the US’s particular involvement going forward remains unclear, it is unlikely that President Obama, who was elected on the promise to extract the US from Iraq, would agree to a wholesale re-introduction of ground forces on par with the levels of 2007, Moss said.
"Besides, there does not appear to be any real groundswell of support for that idea among the American public," the expert said.
"The American public is not uniformly opposed to the idea of responding to some degree, especially to counter ISIS, but a large-scale operation would not sit well."
Moss added that ISIS is a terrorist organization with growing ambitions and poses a real threat to more than just the existing power structures in the Middle East.
"It has perverted its own faith to serve a political and ideological agenda that is more properly suited for the 14th century than the 21st century," Moss said.
The video, entitled “A Message to America,” and showing the beheading of US journalist James Foley by a masked IS militant, was posted on YouTube on Tuesday. Foley was missing in Syria since November 22, 2012.The Islamic State militant group claimed to have executed the photojournalist in retaliation for US airstrikes in Iraq.
"It was, quite simply, a horrific and barbaric act eerily reminiscent of the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl back in 2002," Moss said, adding that it was also a grim reminder of the brutal tactics that have been routinely used by IS, including on fellow Muslims.
