O-bomb-a

In the end, we're all neocons, I guess:

The U.S. and five Arab countries launched airstrikes Monday night on Islamic State group targets in Syria, expanding a military campaign into a country whose three-year civil war has given the brutal militant group a safe haven.

Using a mix of manned aircraft — fighter jets and bombers — plus Tomahawk cruise missiles, the strikes were part of the expanded military campaign that President Barack Obama authorized nearly two weeks ago in order to disrupt and destroy the Islamic State militants, who have slaughtered thousands of people, beheaded Westerners — including two American journalists — and captured large swaths of Syria and northern and western Iraq.

It appears that someone has given some thought to the appropriate targets:

Some of the airstrikes were against Islamic State group's self-declared capital in Raqqa in northeastern Syria. Military officials have said the U.S. would target militants' command and control centers, re-supply facilities, training camps and other key logistical sites.

Syrian activists reported several airstrikes on militant targets in Raqqa. One Raqqa-based activist, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the airstrikes lit the night sky over the city, and reported a power cut that lasted for two hours.

An anti-militant media collective called "Raqqa is being silently slaughtered" said among the targets were Islamic State buildings used as the group's headquarters, and the Brigade 93, a Syrian army base that the militants recently seized. Other airstrikes targeted the town of Tabqa and Tel Abyad in Raqqa province, it said. Their claims could not be independently verified.

Raqqa is a city about the size of Madison, on the Euphrates River. If the U.S. so chose, it could turn Raqqa into a parking lot, but we haven't chosen that option since Vietnam.

There's a larger question that hovers over the events of the last quarter century -- is radical Islam an existential threat? If it is, going after terrorists everywhere is required. If radical Islam is not an existential threat, then we've spent a lot of time and effort chasing a chimera. We can, and likely will, spend a lot of time sorting out the political blame for all this, but it doesn't do much to answer the larger question.