Earlier this month, U.S. President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser Susan Rice was questioned on NBC television about the American administration's war strategy concerning the Islamic State, the aggressive and messianic self-proclaimed New Islamic Caliphate. Does a strategy exist? she was initially asked, since there are, to put it mildly, doubters among the crowd.

She firmly replied that there is indeed a strategy, which was stated by the president, which is to deter and ultimately "destroy" the Islamic State.

However, to destroy the Islamic State is not a strategy; it is an objective. The strategy is what gets the new international coalition (a doubtful quantity thus far) formed by the U.S. from here to there. She described the strategy as forming the coalition (already done by the United States, which has appointed itself the coalition's leader, although it has not yet been made clear what the leader will do, beyond carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State.