TIME

Beating ISIS—and saving Iraq

An Iraq military outpost south of Mosul near Makhmour, where Iraqi forces have a training and operations base

ISIS’S CROWN JEWEL in Iraq for more than two years is all but guaranteed to fall soon to a major military offensive led by Iraqi security forces and bolstered by U.S. advisers and airpower. Retaking Mosul, a city of 1 million that has been a keystone to ISIS’s claims as a caliphate, isn’t going to be the problem for the new U.S. President. It’s the morning after the Iraqi flag begins flying anew over Iraq’s second largest city that’s the real challenge. The U.S. has never lacked the firepower to win the war. But it doesn’t seem to have the strategy, or the willpower, to win the

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