The Coming Fall of Mosul
Iraqi forces are on the verge of a mighty victory.
Although there is much hard fighting to be done in Iraq, the fall of Mosul will effectively spell the end of the Islamic State’s eastern province. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria will then be the Islamic State of Syria. In Arabic, we’ll have to start calling Daesh—the acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria—“Dish.”
Last fall, I visited Iraq on two occasions with the then-secretary of defense. On our last visit, in December, the U.S. commander on the ground, Steve Townsend, told the secretary that he could
