An act of war

Hollande has called the Paris attacks an act of war, and indeed it is. I guess it's time to clean out Iraq and Syria. France is our ally, and we must join them. So a new war seems inevitable.

The hard part of all this is the exit strategy. The natural goals (after rapidly defeating IS of course) are to restore the colonial borders and stabilize the region politically. I would contend that these two goals may be incompatible. The Sunni regions simply do not like being ruled by Shia. But redrawing boundaries is unacceptable to crucial players. For example, if the Sunnis get a homeland, then so should the Kurds. And Turkey would never allow that.

So this one is especially difficult. My guess is the only possibility of avoiding a permanent occupation is strong de-facto autonomy for Sunnis and Kurds, and Iraq and Syria would be states in name only. No idea if this is really possible.

There would be one good result from this. It would be the second time a terrorist state (as opposed to isolated independent cells) committed suicide by a spectacular attack on westerners. I find it unlikely that pattern would repeat a third time. Take care not to awaken a sleeping giant.