Similar questions - about who's winning, is it right, is it true, and will it work - can be applied, more broadly, to the entire US and allied effort.
The sobering fact is that, however justified is this intervention, British and American intelligence on IS is not good enough to know the extent to which that is true.To bring more light to the allied effort, Rory Stewart, the Conservative chair of the defence select committee, has advocated rebooting British diplomacy in the region, at local expense.
LIBYA Overcoming internal squabbles, NATO prepared to assume leadership from the United States of the military campaign against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's forces, senior NATO officials said, while the allied effort won rare military commitments in the Arab world when a Qatari fighter jet flew on patrol and the United Arab Emirates said it would send warplanes.
By the end, though, the involvement of US forces in the region had increased as the US Army took over responsibility for the main Allied effort from the Australians.
One of the most trenchant criticisms of the allied effort in Afghanistan was made earlier this week to London University students by General Rupert Smith, one of Britain's foremost military thinkers as well as accomplished operational commanders of recent times.
Thus the UK will be committing 500 troops to Estonia and another 150 to Poland as part of the allied effort to beef up its eastern flank.
IN THE Gulf war of 1991, Germany sat nervously on the sidelines, contributing only cash to the allied effort.
Instead, tomorrow night's audience will hear Beethoven's Fifth, which was famously conscripted into the Allied effort during World War II.
British sources say weaknesses in intelligence highlight wider difficulties in coordinating the allied effort among Nato's 19 countries.
France said it would begin a phased pullback next month of the 4,000 soldiers it has contributed to the allied effort.
Now, as France begins a phased pullback of the 4,000 soldiers it has contributed to the allied effort, the nature of our intervention should evolve.
