From a reader:

Peter – as a former army guy and former poli sci student who spent a lot

of time “counting rifles”, it’s pretty clear to me that the Army and

Marines do not have the capacity to do much in the way of an additional

sustained mission right now. A brief cross-border romp by a reinforced

armoured brigade group could probably be arranged – I hear Syria is nice

this time of year. Seriously, while there is certainly no will or

capacity to occupy either of those countries, it should be noted that the

Navy and the Air Force both have pretty clear schedules nowadays. While

the Army and Marines have been sweating it in Iraq, the other two services

have been able to recuperate and rebuild following an end to their

large-scale Middle Eastern commitments. Remember that maintaining the “no

fly zones” was a tremendous long term train on aviation assets.

To sum up: no occupation, but with airfields and other assets in Iraq, we

could definitely hurt them.