ISIS SQUEEZED IN IRAQ – AT 10:14 A.M. ET:  This story does not get anywhere near the attention it deserves.  The anti-ISIS forces are winning in Iraq.  Victory will not bring the end of ISIS.  It will probably mutate somewhere else, but victory will show that ISIS cannot hold land it has taken.  From Reuters: 

After eight months of grinding urban warfare, Iraqi government troops on Thursday captured the ruined mosque in Mosul from where Islamic State proclaimed its self-styled caliphate three years ago, the Iraqi military said.

Iraqi authorities expect the long battle for Mosul to end in the coming days as the remaining Islamic State fighters are now bottled up in just a handful of neighborhoods of the Old City.

The seizure of the 850-year-old Grand al-Nuri Mosque is a huge symbolic victory for the Iraqi forces fighting to recapture Mosul, which had served as Islamic State's de facto capital in Iraq.

"Their fictitious state has fallen," an Iraqi military spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, told state TV.

The insurgents blew up the medieval mosque and its famed leaning minaret a week ago as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces started a push in its direction. Their black flag had been flying from al-Hadba (The Hunchback) minaret since June 2014.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi "issued instructions to bring the battle to its conclusion," his office said.

COMMENT:  The rise of ISIS in Iraq occurred because, under Field Marshal Obama, the United States pulled out of that country too soon, and did not leave a protective force behind.  It takes time, sometimes decades, to stabilize an area.  When the United States has held the course and maintained its commitment, as in South Korea, the result is usually good.  We failed that test in Iraq.

June 29, 2017