'America'ss allies' logic of the situation believe that the US will be compelled to intervene on the ground'

"As the pace of operations against ISIL accelerates but with inconclusive results, there are signs of rising tension between President Obama and his leading military advisers. In a visit to the Pentagon on October 8^th, Obama received what a Department of Defense contact described to us as a “reality check.” With top Pentagon spokesmen acknowledging that air strikes by themselves will not check ISIL advances, the talk in Washington has turned to ground troops. Talks with regional allies, notably Turkey, about supplying combat forces have proved fruitless. As a State Department official remarked to us: “They all believe that the logic of the situation will compel us to intervene on the ground, so they will not make the first move.” Administration contacts tell us that both Secretary of State Kerry and Secretary of Defense Hagel accept this logic, but Obama and his inner circle remain resistant and thus the official line remains that ground troops are not under consideration. Another unresolved dilemma for the Administration’s posture is Syria. Advisers close to Obama now advocate giving less priority to efforts to unseat the Assad regime, at least until ISIL is sufficiently weakened. We do not, however, see this as likely to emerge as official policy. One unexpected beneficiary of the turmoil in Iraq may be the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Following a bilateral meeting between US and Iranian officials on October 14^th in Vienna, Kerry will resume talks with his Iranian counterpart Mohammed Javed Zarif together with the EU negotiator Katherine Ashton there on the following day. While expectations for these sessions are modest, US officials tell us that the conflict with ISIL on which the US and Iran find themselves broadly aligned has made these talks more collegial. As one official put it: “We have found that we have interests in common.” Whether this will lead to tangible results remains to be seen."