Kurdish refugees from Kobani watch as thick smoke covers their city during fighting between ISIS and Kurdish peshmerga forces on Oct. 26, 2014. Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

Obama’s Quagmire -- Fred Kaplan, Slate

America’s campaign against ISIS has already lost its way.

America’s war against ISIS is quickly turning into a quagmire.

A few signs of progress have sprung up in recent days. U.S. airstrikes have slowed down the Islamist group’s onslaught against the Kurdish town of Kobani in northern Syria. A much-cheered caravan of Kurdish peshmerga fighters is making its way from Iraq to join the battle.

But even if the Kurds push ISIS out of Kobani, what does that signify in the larger struggle? What happens next? And what is the Obama administration’s desired endgame and its path for getting there? These questions have no clear answers, and that speaks volume.

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My Comment: This part of the world has been a "quagmire" since the beginning of civilization. A U.S./foreign intervention can only do so much .... in the end .... it is the people who live there who must decide on the future that they want.