they served the purpose of getting other motivated players actively involved in the fight against ISIS other than the United States. In my opinion, ISIS has purposely refrained from directly attacking targets in the United States for fear that we would retaliate disproportionately. However, they've stupidly stirred up a huge hornets' nest by enraging France and Russia. People joke about France, but in actuality they have some of the best trained and nastiest fighting forces in the world.

Despite all the ignorant and belligerent sabre rattling blather by the usual La-Z-boy Rambos on the right, Obama's strategy to be patient, and to not commit large numbers of combat troops to fight ISIS alone has turned out to be the correct one. Now we have powerful potential partners with a thirst for revenge, and we don't have to go it alone. The end result might not only be that ISIS gets booted from all their occupied territory, but (if we play our cards right) a new detente with Russia might happen as a bonus. Once again Obama has been proven to be a strategic genius, and the Republicans have been proven to be idiots.