The Washington Post's Dana Milbank writes about a recent Obama speech at the Pentagon in which he described our efforts against ISIS as basically "whac-a-mole." It isn't actually a bad description of our efforts there with air strikes.
Let's analyze. What makes the game "whac-a-mole" difficult? The player has only one mallet and a rubber mole can pop up out of any of five holes, one or more at a time. As the game goes on the pace accelerates. The faster you react the higher your score. It becomes a test of reaction times and situational awareness.
Suppose you had five mallets and five arms and could hit every hole every time movement appeared anywhere on the board, conditions that do not exist on the game console. You could get a very high score.
Now, about ISIS. Suppose we had enough planes to bomb every town they occupy every day. We'd kill a lot of civilians but might just make ISIS-as-a-supposed-country impossible to sustain.
What makes ISIS whac-a-mole difficult is trying to guess where the bad guys are right now, and how to tell them from the civilians among whom they hide. You solve that problem by not being discriminating, by deeming everyone within their boundaries an enemy or a collaborator and, as such, a target.
If we aren't willing to do what is necessary, as I expect is the case, we might as well leave and let ISIS get on with building the early 21st century version of Nazi Germany, complete with creative genocidal practices.
