Mark Perry writes: Just 24 hours after a Tunisian-born French citizen killed more than 80 people in Nice, President Obama is coming under fire from critics for “fiddling around” against the Islamic State, as former CIA Director James Woolsey said on Thursday night on MSNBC. While it isn’t yet clear whether the Nice attack was ISIS-ordered or inspired, Woolsey questioned Obama’s commitment to destroying the jihadist group, saying “we haven’t taken the gloves off.”

In fact, according to several senior serving and retired military officers, Woolsey has it wrong. “ISIS is reeling and their fighters are fleeing the battlefield,” a senior officer of the U.S. Central Command (Centcom), told me last week. “We don’t have a victory yet, but we’re winning and it’s not even close. The campaign is absolutely relentless, very violent. We’re killing a lot of their people. That’s a fact, and it’s undeniable.” In recent weeks Iraqi forces have taken back the city of Fallujah and regained control of key positions near the city of Mosul.

Unfortunately, this same officer says, the success of the anti-ISIS, U.S.-led air campaign is having some unintended, but predictable, consequences. One of them is the increasing vulnerability of European countries, particularly those (like France) that are participants in the air campaign. [Continue reading…]