NEW YORK, August 12 (RIA Novosti) – US airstrikes on the targets of Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Iraq have failed elsewhere and will not solve Iraq’s current problems, Matthew Hoh, an analyst and former US marine, told RIA Novosti.
“If American bullets and bombs were the answer to civil wars and political disorder in the Muslim world, the situation would have been resolved when the US invaded Iraq in 2003,” said Hoh, a fellow at the Center for International Policy who previously served in Afghanistan.
“US President Barack Obama’s surge of nearly 70,000 troops into Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010 would have produced reconciliation among the Afghans and not the bloodshed of the last five years. The American bombs that fell on Libya in 2011 would have created peace rather than the civil war that is still ravaging Libya's countryside and cities,” the marine veteran said.
"The same is true with the Islamic State in Iraq – US military action is not the solution,” Hoh added.
The United States has launched airstrikes against the Islamic State militant group, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL. The Sunni Muslim insurgency controls swathes of Iraq and Syria and recent attacks on Kurdish-run northern Iraq have forced tens of thousands of Christians to flee their homes.
