Obama’s “we-don’t-have-a-strategy” gaffe was so egregious as to distract attention from the fact that he does indeed have a strategy, which has blown up in his face. His strategy is accommodation with Iran at all costs. As I wrote earlier this month, our ISIS problem derives from our Iran problem: Bashar Assad’s ethnic cleansing, which has displaced 4 million Syrians internally and driven 3 million out of the country, was possible because of Iranian backing. The refugee flood in Iraq and Syria gives ISIS an unlimited pool of recruits. Iraqi Sunni support for ISIS, including the participation of some of Saddam Hussein’s best officers, is a response to Iran’s de facto takeover of Iraq…

That is entirely correct: in that region, air power could drastically weaken ISIS, if not quite eradicate it. It certainly could contain its advances (as fewer than 100 American sorties already have in northern Iraq). But the underlying problem will remain: Iran’s depredations have triggered an economic and demographic catastrophe in the region, and that catastrophe has created the snowball effect we call ISIS.