“If you are asking, ‘Is the United States winning,’ that is the wrong question,” Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said when asked about the US objectives in the fight against the Islamic State.
Dempsey explained that the US military action in support of a 60 nation coalition against the Islamic State “is a far different approach than if we were to decide ourselves that it is our responsibility to defeat ISIL [Islamic State] inside of Iraq.”
The current US objective is “to deliver what we committed to deliver, which is security forces,” Dempsey added.
Obama came under sharp criticism during the Group of Seven (G7) conference earlier in the month when he admitted that the United States does not have “a complete strategy” for the training of Iraqi forces against the Islamic State.
