Dr. Shani Drawer

Mm-hmm.

Also in this podcast... I get some very funny stories of owners telling me they were thinking of ordering a pizza and they were talking between them and then the dog ran into the room with their toy named pizza.

The US Central Command has issued a statement saying that it's carried out multiple strikes across Syria against Islamic State targets.

This is the second major operation it's carried out since there was an attack which the US has accused an Islamic State fighter of carrying out in Palmyra last month on December 13th.

Just a few days after that, there was a similar range of strikes across the country in response to that attack.

I mean, we don't know exactly how much impact that's had on what's left of IS.

Some of the information I've seen is that it hasn't really had a huge effect.

So I think it's more to give that statement of intent.

And that's very much the way that it was phrased by the US Central Command.

I mean, they call this Operation Hawkeye Strike.

As I say, this is in response to an ambush in which two American soldiers were killed and a US civilian interpreter were killed.

So, you know, a major setback for the US in that.

And the US Central Command ends its statement with this saying, our message remains strong.

And this is very Trumpian.

If you harm our warfighters, we will find you and kill you anywhere in the world, no matter how hard you try to evade justice.

That is what the message they're trying to get across.

In a sense, obviously, there is a military strategy to this, but it is also performative in a way.

I don't think that the strategists can believe that they can stamp out what's left of IS in Syria on this.

I mean, IS has essentially gone to ground there.

It's in remote areas.