How can this be "the air strikes are working", I thought they were all smoldering corpse's by now...........
who said they were all smoldering? there are 31,000 of them. We blew up a shitload of their bases, safe houses, vehicles, and oil/grain for income. maybe they're going for that "last stand" since their houses are smoldering. Either way, if I'm fighting what's left of ISIS, I would MUCH rather have them on an open battlefield, ADVANCING, so their movements are visible and obvious, and they're vulnerable to airstrikes.
What we don't want is them retreating into the cities and disappearing for 1,2,3,5 years. I love the idea of them fighting to the death against the iraqi military. lose half of them in battle, and we'll airstrike whoever is left, or let them limp to a safehouse, track them, and blow that place up too.
again, nobody said they were all smoldering corpses. I like the idea of destroying infrastructure, driving them into an advacing battle, and finishing them on the battlefield, where we have HUGE advantages. our advantages do NOT lie in urban warfare, door to door combat in a foreign country. let them advance for that mile to baghdad. I'm betting we haev a red dot on every one of them from a satellite.