The hard truths of Mosul's 'liberation'

But is the war against Islamists lost?

An Iraqi Federal police officer walks among the ruins in Mosul.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani)

Finally, allied forces have announced the liberation of Mosul — now largely a ruin, reduced to penury, seething with enmity — from the Islamic State. Thousands are dead, a million displaced. Streets are still mined. And, as an Iraqi with a long career stretching from policing to governance warned me, the expulsion of ISIS has not driven the self-styled caliphate's poisonous ideology from the souls of all those left inside Iraq's second city.

The battle for Mosul is technically won. But make no mistake: America and her allies are still losing this long war against radical Islamists, who are now on pace to beat us at our own destructive game.

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James Poulos

James Poulos is a contributing editor at National Affairs and the author of The Art of Being Free, out January 17 from St. Martin's Press. He has written on freedom and the politics of the future for publications ranging from The Federalist to Foreign Policy and from Good to Vice. He fronts the band Night Years in Los Angeles, where he lives with his son.