To eliminate IS, US has to back Syria

There is a popular saying about Apple's new products: When Apple founder Steve Jobs was at the helm of affairs, people knew nothing but the name of a new product before it hit the market, after Tim Cook took over the reins, people know all but the name of a product before its launch.

To some extent, US President Barack Obama is like Cook in his belated "new" move against the "Islamic State", formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or the Levante). Delivering a speech on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, Obama reiterated that Washington will mainly use its air power and international allies' assistance to help Iraqi and Kurdish forces fight the IS, and that US troops will not be on the frontline.

Nothing that Obama said about the IS, which occupies swaths of land in northern Iraq and Syria, is new. And anyway, its military strategy is not likely to eliminate the IS within three years as Obama has claimed, because of a fatal strategic flaw, which is the US' insistence on targeting the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, the only regional leader willing and able to take on the Islamic militants with full military force.