Our View: Targeting terror in Iraq, Syria
The News Herald
If anyone doubted the president intends to wage war against terrorists in the Middle East, those doubts should have vanished Monday night with the launching of airstrikes against Islamic State strongholds in both Iraq and Syria.
Missiles fired from warships bathed their decks in dazzling light; fireballs rose from explosions over darkened cities.
It wasn't quite the "shock and awe" orchestrated by George W. Bush in 2003, but the strikes ordered by Barack Obama were, for starters, good enough. They showed that the United States means business.
They were also remarkable, for two reasons.
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First, no fewer than five Arab nations were on America's side. Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates participated in the airstrikes. These more or less progressive Arab nations don't want to see their region succumb to the medieval barbarism of the Islamic State movement. The coalition was, in the words of an Associated Press report, "an unexpected foreign policy victory" for Mr. Obama, who has reluctantly begun this new U.S. war in the Middle East just after ending the last one.
The second reason Monday's airstrikes were remarkable is that they also aimed to defang the Khorosan Group, a batch of al-Qaida veterans engaged in "imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests," military officials said.
We'd guess most Americans had never heard of the Khorosan Group. That's how it goes. Most Americans had never heard of al-Qaida before Sept. 11, 2001.
We know that our readers have doubts about Mr. Obama's war on terror. The News Herald has expressed its own doubts. But if our armed forces and their allies have disrupted a plot to kill Americans, good. If their bombs and missiles are dismantling the blood-crazed Islamic State piece by piece, even better. We wish our military grand luck in this endeavor, and continued safety.