But there was a mysterious black box in the middle of Obama’s speech. Here’s how he tried to explain it: “The strategy that we are using now — airstrikes, special forces and working with local forces who are fighting to regain control of their own country — that is how we’ll achieve a more sustainable victory.”

What “local forces” is Obama talking about? If he means Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria, yes, they’ve performed admirably. In Kurdish areas. They don’t want to clear and hold the Sunni heartland of the Islamic State, nor should they. If Obama is talking about the Shiite-led Iraqi military, their performance is still just barely adequate, even backed by American air power, and they’re disdained and mistrusted by the Sunnis of Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul. If he’s talking about the Islamist brigades in Syria armed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, it’s still not entirely clear whether they’re friend or foe.

The disturbing fact is that a strong, reliable, indigenous Sunni ground force doesn’t exist yet in Iraq or Syria. The United States has been trying to fix this problem since the fall of Mosul in June 2014, with very little success. We’re like the joke about the starving economist who needs to open a can of beans on a desert island and posits: “Assume we had a can opener!”