Frederick Kagan played an important part in designing the "surge" strategy the U.S. used successfully in Iraq in 2007. This is a paper he put out last fall, which I think is interesting. Note that the plan he suggests would involve a couple thousand or so special forces working with local infantry, but not usually directly engaged in combat. They would be very heavily supported by an army combat aviation brigade, dispersed to several large forward bases in Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and possibly Turkey.
At these bases there would also be a total of about 7,000 men in a quick reaction force, of which about one-third would be available at any time. The assault and transport helicopters of the combat aviation brigade would take them and possibly some artillery, vehicles, etc. to wherever they might be needed in a fight. Most of the other forces would be supporting these ground and air forces by defending the bases, maintaining equipment, bringing in supplies, etc.
So only a fraction of the 25,000 total involved in the effort would be within shooting range of the jihadists, and they would have all sorts of resources backing them up, e.g. attack helicopters, search-and-rescue and medevac units, and drones. And in the unlikely event that even more firepower were ever needed, carrier aircraft and even heavy bombers could be brought to bear pretty quickly.
I agree with Kagan that an effort like this would be very risky--but that letting these people survive is even riskier yet. I remember President Kennedy's speech to the nation on October 22, 1962, when he acknowledged the dangers of the military measures he was taking--sending 100 ships and subs to blockade Cuba, moving 1,000 combat aircraft into striking range, getting 100,000 troops in position to invade Cuba, if necessary--but said the greatest danger of all would be for the U.S. to do nothing about the Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. He was right. That would have been an open invitation to the Soviets to take a chance, before long, on invading West Berlin. By being too anxious to avoid World War III over Cuba, we would have been asking for it to break out over Germany.
I doubt anything like the steps Kagan proposed will happen while this President is in office--and so much the worse for this country. Islamic jihadists are the common enemies of all civilized people, and there is no living in the world with them. They are just like the bastards who attacked us on 9/11, and this time they have an even better safe haven and even more resources. Thanks to Mr. Obama, they are also being given all sorts of time to draw their plans against us.
http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Defeating ISIS_0.pdf
