Excerpts:

To begin with, this is not simply a fight against the Islamic State. In fact, the key center of gravity in this campaign is to create something approaching a unified Iraq that is not dependent on Iran, or divided into Arab Shi’ite, Arab Sunni, and Kurd.  There can be no meaningful military victory in Iraq without Iraqi political stability, and changes in the quality and equity of governance that offer every major faction hope and an incentive to cooperate. Moreover, there can be no meaningful military victory unless these changes create a structure of Iraqi security forces that can win back and then secure all of the country.

(the above statement is probably one of the best insights which has been lost in all the discussion about boots on the ground - I think the administration's emphasis on no boots on the ground may go down in history as one of the bigger strategic communications miscalculations.)

Iraq still has effective combat units in spite of Maliki, but it is going to need forward Special Forces, ranger-type troops, and other teams of experts to help coordinate, train, and link ground and air power. These need to be embedded at the combat unit level, they need to be armed, they need to be capable of self-defense, and they need to be prepared to take casualties and have medical aid.

...

Doing it their way—rather than trying to make them do it our way in spite of cost and major cultural differences—is critical. However, helping them change “doing it their way” to deal with maneuver, combined operations, land-air warfare, and develop leadership in complex operations is critical. This can only be done forward and in combat. “Force generation” in the rear is equally necessary, but is never enough. It does take a limited number of U.S. “boots of the ground” that will effectively be in combat to make the difference.

Conclusion:

This is the plan and the risk the administration should have presented to Congress from the start. This is the level of U.S. involvement in Iraq the President should have had the courage to explain and defend. This is the level of U.S. “boots on the ground” the Congress needs to understand, debate, support, and properly resource. The political risks already are high enough. Trying to make the Iraqi side of the campaign work on the basis of air strikes and force generators and enablers on the ground that can’t go forward and can’t be where it will count most is a recipe for failure.

I think what Dr. Cordesman has outlined is the strategy that both the Pentagon and the President want.  I think the President's advisers may have counseled what might look like a bait and switch when this turns out to be the strategy that we will execute in the months to come.  But we have tried so hard to address the perception of war-weariness and tried to prevent the domestic political backlash that it is going to get harder and harder to execute an agile strategy to do much of what Dr. Cordesman recommends.  Again, I know that politics trumps all - except leadership.  Sometimes leadership needs to trump politics in order to do what is right.

One thing about advisers forward with combat troops and air power.  Yes our Air Force and Naval Aviators can hit what they are aiming for and with their advanced targeting capabilities may not need the kind of support from the ground that has been necessary in the past.  What US advisers on the ground are really needed for is to advise and help the Iraqi ground forces to maneuver and exploit the effects of air power.  Air power alone won't do the job. The ground force cannot do the job if it is not synched with air power.  The Iraqis on their own are not capable of orchestrating and coordinating their ground operations with our air power.  Experts are needed for that. Therefore we need US forces forward.

Iraq, Syria, and the Islamic State: The “Boots on the Ground” Fallacy

http://csis.org/publication/iraq-syria-and-islamic-state-boots-ground-fallacy

• 
  By Anthony H. Cordesman
  SEP 19, 2014
  
  
  There are times the United States does not need an enemy in going to war. It poses enough of a threat to itself without any foreign help. The current debate over ground troops in Iraq and Syria threatens to be yet another case in point, compounding the American threats to America that have done so much damage in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the earlier fighting in Iraq.

  The Islamic State is Not the Center of Gravity, and the Politics of Iraqi Unity are More Critical Than the Fighting

  To begin with, this is not simply a fight against the Islamic State. In fact, the key center of gravity in this campaign is to create something approaching a unified Iraq that is not dependent on Iran, or divided into Arab Shi’ite, Arab Sunni, and Kurd.  There can be no meaningful military victory in Iraq without Iraqi political stability, and changes in the quality and equity of governance that offer every major faction hope and an incentive to cooperate. Moreover, there can be no meaningful military victory unless these changes create a structure of Iraqi security forces that can win back and then secure all of the country.

  It is not a fight directed at the Islamic State alone in Syria. Even the best outcome in degrading and destroying the Islamic State will not produce a broad political victory against violent Islamic extremism. It will not defeat such extremism in Iraq or Syria, only suppress it to the extent to which key ethnic and sectarian factions find a better alternative, and the broader threat of violent religious extremism will almost certainly continue to grow in the rest of the Islamic world.

  More seriously, it will leave Syria divided between an Assad regime that has managed to create even more casualties, human suffering, and repression than the Islamic State, and retake control of something like 65-70% of Syria’s population while leaving divided and sometime warring rebel factions in the east. The refugee and internally displaced persons crisis that the UN now estimates puts some nine million Syrians at risk will remain, and even the best run U.S. and allied Arab effort to create an effective political and military alternative will take years to build and win.

  These are the key goals and realities that will shape the fight against the Islamic State, and the much broader strategic objectives the United States has in Iraq and Syria. They also, however, place some key limits on the kind of U.S. ground presence that will help achieve them. This is not 2003-2011. The United States is not a conquering or occupying state, and it must now intervene in a state that Maliki divided, undermined, and drove into civil war.

  History will have to judge whether Maliki was worse than Saddam Hussein, but any use of U.S. ground troops must take account of the reality that any major U.S. combat units sent into today’s Iraq would inevitably become caught up in the civil war Maliki triggered after 2011, and find it impossible not to become caught up in the struggles between Arab Sunni and Arab Shi’ite, and Arab forces and the Kurdish peshmerga. He politicized and helped corrupt the Iraqi forces, alienated the Sons of Iraq, sentenced key Sunni political leaders to death, crippled the Kurdish economy and peshmerga, used his army and police to suppress and alienate the Sunnis in the West and North, and create the power vacuum that allowed the Islamic State to win so much territory.

  There is a Strong Case Against Deploying U.S. Major Combat Units
• (Continued at the link below)
• http://csis.org/publication/iraq-syria-and-islamic-state-boots-ground-fallacy

We are piecemealing this strategy hoping that each piece will add up to success.  We are obviously not going "all in" for obvious political and domestic reasons which of course has led to the mismatch in ends (destruction of IS) and ways - weak coalition with indigenous forces trained but not effectively advised by US forces using a "model" (Yemen and Somalia) that is inappropriate or inapplicable to this situation.

"To be clear, if we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL targets, I will recommend that to the president," Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committees, using an alternative name for the group.

Dempsey said the White House has ruled out the use of special operations forces on the ground, but Obama has told him to come back "on a case by case basis" if the situation changes.

If we are not going to at least let our Special Forces do the job right (which means effective advising through actions on the objective) then we may as well through in the towel now or go right to the final course of action as GEN Dempsey says.

Pressed during questioning, Dempsey said that under certain circumstances he "would go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of ground forces."

...

"Are pilots dropping bombs in Iraq a direct combat mission and will U.S. forces be prepared to provide search and rescue mission if pilots get shot down and be prepared to put boots on the ground to make that mission be successful?" Inhofe asked.

"Yes and yes," Dempsey said.

And then there is this excerpt.  With all due respect if we want to have an indigenous capability in Syria it is not merely a train and equip program.  We need to focus on unconventional warfare (and I am only assuming that someone has done a complete feasibility assessment and determined that there is sufficient resistance potential that we can exploit - if not then we had better go to plan B which is I guess boots on the ground).

Dempsey said it would take three to five months to establish the training program, working with moderate Syrians who have been driven from their homes by Islamic militants. An estimated two-thirds of the approximately 30,000 extremists are in Syria.

We cannot simply give the Syria opposition some training and weapons and then just turn them loose.  We need to consider what it takes to conduct effective unconventional warfare, develop and enable their underground and auxiliary as well as their guerrilla forces and most of all consider what comes "next" - e.g., how are we going to influence the situation after the fall of Assad (because you know that the resistance we train, advise, and enable to go after ISIL/IS is going to exploit our support to go after Assad).

Dempsey: If campaign fails, ground troops possible

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_289563/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=TaZeCpaO

Story user rating:
    

By DONNA CASSATA and LOLITA C. BALDOR
Published: 10 minutes ago

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, left, and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the first in a series of high-profile Capitol Hill hearings that will measure the president's ability to rally congressional support for President Barack Obama's strategy to combat Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria, in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014. Obama last week outlined his military plan to destroy the extremists, authorizing U.S. airstrikes inside Syria, stepping up attacks in Iraq and deploying additional American troops, with more than 1,000 now advising and assisting Iraqi security forces to counter the terrorism threat. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's top military leader told Congress on Tuesday he would recommend that the United States consider deploying ground forces to Iraq if President Barack Obama's expanded air campaign to destroy Islamic extremists fails.

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate panel that the goal for American advisers is to help Iraqi forces with planning, logistics and coordinating military efforts by coalition partners to take out members of the Islamic State group.

"To be clear, if we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL targets, I will recommend that to the president," Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committees, using an alternative name for the group.

Pressed during questioning, Dempsey said that under certain circumstances he "would go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of ground forces."

Obama has maintained that American forces will not have a combat mission in Iraq.

Dempsey and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel fielded questions from lawmakers as Obama met at the White House with a retired general who is coordinating international efforts and House Republicans privately reviewed legislation that would grant the administration's request to train and equip the forces who will combat the militants.

There was no indication of organized resistance to the administration request. The legislation is likely to come to a vote in the House on Wednesday and the Senate by week's end.

Still, some lawmakers said they doubted Obama's current plan was sufficient to achieve his stated goal of degrading and defeating the Islamic state militants.

"I'm still not satisfied that the moderate Free Syrian Army is moderate or an army," said Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, referring to the 5,000 or so individuals the administration hopes to train.

House Speaker John Boehner, told reporters, "I think there's a lot more that we need to be doing, but there's no reason for us not to do what the president asked us to do."

The House's No. 2 Democrat, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, told reporters he supports support the president's request.

Dempsey said Americans in Iraq are serving in a combat advisory role but not participating in direct combat. However, if the Iraqi forces took on a complex mission to retake Mosul, the general said he might want U.S. troops to accompany the Iraqi troops or provide close combat advice.

The apparent contradiction of combat-trained forces not participating directly in combat was captured in one exchange between Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and Dempsey.

"Are pilots dropping bombs in Iraq a direct combat mission and will U.S. forces be prepared to provide search and rescue mission if pilots get shot down and be prepared to put boots on the ground to make that mission be successful?" Inhofe asked.

"Yes and yes," Dempsey said.

Dempsey said the White House has ruled out the use of special operations forces on the ground, but Obama has told him to come back "on a case by case basis" if the situation changes.

Pressed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., about whether the U.S. would put troops on the ground in Syria if no other allies participate, Dempsey made clear his view that the American military alone - even with armored divisions on the ground in Syria - can't defeat the Islamic State group's threat.

Instead, he said, to defeat the threat, it will be crucial to have Arab and Muslim partners battling the group in the region.

The U.S. military has conducted strikes near Baghdad against the Islamic State group, which has seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria. Dempsey said the United States is prepared to strike Islamic targets in Syria.

"This will not look like 'shock and awe' because that is not how ISIL is organized. But it will be persistent and sustainable," Dempsey said, referring to the air bombardment at the start of the Iraq war in March 2003.

Several lawmakers have their doubts about the United States being pulled into a larger war, with increasing numbers of American troops. The president has already dispatched more than 1,000 Americans three years after combat forces left Iraq.

Many Republicans and Democrats have expressed reservations about the ability to identify moderates in a country awash with rebel formations and shifting alliances. The Islamic State grew out of the al-Qaida movement, but the two are now fighting. In some instances, the moderate Free Syrian Army has teamed with al-Qaida's local franchise, the Nusra Front.

Hagel said the U.S. will monitor them closely to ensure that weapons don't fall into the wrong hands.

Dempsey said it would take three to five months to establish the training program, working with moderate Syrians who have been driven from their homes by Islamic militants. An estimated two-thirds of the approximately 30,000 extremists are in Syria.

"We have come a long way" in our ability to vet the moderate opposition and the U.S. learned a lot as it has funneled non-lethal aid to the rebels, Dempsey said.

Anti-war protesters filled the front rows at the hearing, chanting "no more war" at the start of the session and repeatedly interrupting the testimony. The protesters were escorted from the room.

Hagel said the involvement will not be "an easy or brief effort. We are at war with ISIL, as we are with al-Qaida."

At the White House, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with retired Marine Gen. John Allen, who is coordinating international efforts to combat the Islamic State militants.

The legislation taking shape in Congress includes a provision stating that "nothing in this section shall be construed to constitute a specific statutory authorization for the introduction of U.S. armed forces into hostilities or into situations wherein hostilities are clearly indicated by the circumstances."

The provision reflects a congressional divide between hawks seeking tougher action than that proposed by Obama and lawmakers weary from more than a decade of U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

____

AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace and reporters Erica Werner, Alan Fram, Andrew Taylor and Bradley Klapper contributed to this report.