That was what David Petraeus was thinking about when the US was occupying Iraq. Who would govern the Sunni areas when US troops pulled out?

That is what I’m asking now. We can bomb the mostly Sunni areas in Iraq and Syria that are currently being controlled by ISIS, but who will occupy them? Even if the Sunni populations of Iraq and Syria become hostile to ISIS, who will reassure those Sunnis that standing up to ISIS won’t mean that ISIS will come back and slaughter their families in a week or a month? Would a Sunni Arab on the Syrian side of the border trust the Assad government or the Free Syrian Army? Would a Sunni Arab on the Iraq side of the border trust the Iran-backed Iraqi government? Tell me who takes over the land and the populations currently governed by ISIS. Then tell me how it ends.