US President Barack Obama’s dispatch of his Secretary of State John Kerry on a high-stakes diplomatic mission of mobilising partners in the battle against ISIS has reportedly brought forth offers by several Arab nations to conduct airstrikes, but there is apparently no indication yet of any country willing for the much-needed ground operation.
Without naming the Arab nations willing for airstrikes, US officials have indicated to American media outlets that the intensified air battle would get going only after the Iraqi and Kurdish forces and moderate Syrian rebel groups begin to step up the ground battle against ISIS.
“What we’re doing right now is putting together the whole package. And it's not appropriate to start announcing, well, this country will do this and this country will do that,” Kerry told CBS’s “Face the Nation” over the weekend.
In Syria, the US is still pinning its hopes largely on the different Syrian opposition groups that have been fighting ISIS by themselves over the last couple of years. “It’s one of the reasons that they’ve had a difficult battle. And now, with the air support and other effort from other countries, they will be augmented in their capacity,” Kerry said.
"I can't tell you whether some other country in the neighborhood will or won't decide to put some people in there. We know the United States is not going to do that, but as I say, this is a strategy coming together as the coalition comes together and the countries declare what they're prepared to do," Kerry said.
But influential Republican Senators are convinced that the battle would make little headway, without American participation on the ground.