It's worth noting that the US Air Force knows exactly where all of the command posts are for ISIS but due to situations beyond their control (political, civilian populations etc.), they cannot engage.
These media stories are cute, but are a mere snapshot into a very complicated world of engagement.
It's probably more accurate to say that the DoD has a reasonable level of confidence for the location of most of the ISIS command posts. The "situations beyond their control" would also include those confidence intervals. These things are dynamic and complex, like you pointed out. As such, it's unwise to declare absolutes about things like this in warfare.
You're right - I won't edit my post but I agree. I went overboard to contrast the article which might make it appear as though the US military lacks this intelligence.
It costs money and it's basically going to be like fighting the Somalis or the Viet Cong or indeed the Iraq/Afghanistan occupations; they're so decentralised that air bombing is ineffective, and they have enough local support that a ground campaign will be grinding.
It's complicated. For starters, the sovereign nations surrounding / occupied by this rebel government don't want to be seen as needing help to maintain their sovereignty (that kind of weakness encourages the next ISIS to try their hand at regime change).
In this specific case, it's largely because sending troops back into Iraq would an admission that it was a mistake for President Obama to pull out of Iraq before their military was completely ready.
Yeah, because training them from 2003 to 2012 to the tune of $25 billion plus didn't make them a competent army, so another 3 years would clearly have gotten the job done.
In reality, President Bush is an utter moron responsible for the largest foreign policy debacle in the last 50 years. He upset the jenga tower that is middle east politics and we're going to be living through knock-on effects for a long time. In particular, Iraq isn't a single country; it's 3 countries held together by military force papering over long running ethnic/religious/tribal feuds. Plus oil.
Also, when Paul Bremer dismissed much of the iraqi military, one of his generals essentially founded Isis [1]. More idiocy courtesy of George Bush.
These media stories are cute, but are a mere snapshot into a very complicated world of engagement.