On this point Pentagon officials have been clear, and the answer, they say, is no.
“Strategically, there are limits to how much you can accomplish with airstrikes,” Secretary Hagel said.
Through airstrikes IS “can be contained, but not in perpetuity,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month as IS moved from Syria into northern Iraq, where they have captured a number of large cities.
“If we’ve learned nothing over 13 years of war, it’s you can’t completely eliminate extremism anywhere through simply kinetics, through air strikes alone,” Kirby added.
That said, General Dempsey noted, “This is an organization that has an apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision, and which will eventually have to be defeated.”
