Squawking Co-hens.

Roger in the NYT:

To defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq will require NATO forces on the ground. After the protracted and inconclusive Western interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is reasonable to ask if this would not be folly. It is also reasonable to demand – and many will – whether military action will only have the effect of winning more recruits for ISIS as more lives and treasure are squandered. Terrorism, the old nostrum has it, can never be completely defeated.

Such arguments are seductive but must be resisted. An air war against ISIS will not get the job done; the Paris attacks occurred well into an unpersuasive bombing campaign. ...

The battle will be long. Islam is in a state of fervid crisis, riven by the regional battle of Sunni and Shia interests (read Saudi Arabia and Iran), afflicted by a metastasizing ideology of anti-Western hatred and Wahhabi fundamentalism, seeking a reasonable accommodation with modernity. The scourge within it can probably only be defeated from within, by the hundreds of millions of Muslims who are people of peace...

Crushing ISIS in Syria and Iraq will not eliminate the jihadi terrorist threat. But the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. ... Disunity and distraction undermined past military efforts to defeat the jihadis.

Unity is now attainable and with it victory.

and Richard at the WaPo:

Everything has changed.

It is impossible now, as the Paris attacks are still fresh, to imagine a Ben Carson in the White House. It is impossible to envision such a man, bereft of foreign policy experience, acting as commander in chief. It is just as impossible to think of Donald Trump in the Oval Office. It is horrifying to imagine him sitting there, thinking of the world as a board game —... Bernie Sanders, too, has had his day. Suddenly, big banks are the least of our problems.

Friday’s attacks changed the world in fundamental ways. The targets struck were, as they say, soft; they were chosen, if not at random, then in some unpredictable fashion. It is hardly possible to protect every restaurant, tavern, even music venue.

This was a terrorist attack whose intent it was to terrorize, to fundamentally shake an entire society. It will take some days, but that goal — despite the very good words of political leaders and the marvelous singing of “La Marseillaise” in the soccer stadium — will be realized.