This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, December 31st, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown.

As Iraqi Security Forces retake Ramadi from ISIS just how much credit is due to the U.S. and however

much credit is due how much credit should the U.S. take.

Chris Preble is Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the

Cato Institute.

We spoke yesterday.

How significant is it for the US

to see the Iraqi security forces expel ISIS from Ramadi.

I think it's significant. I don't think it's very significant in the sense that I don't believe that ISIS is the same level of threat that some people do, but it is a threat to the U.S. interests and therefore having success, whoever achieves that success,

and driving them back and undermining their hold on certain territory, which again undermines their ability

to mobilize resources and draw recruits and that sort of thing.

It doesn't really matter ultimately who scores the victories against them

as long as they are being contained and ultimately driven back.

So I do think this is, to the extent that ISIS is important for the United States, it is certainly good news that the Iraqis have achieved this success.

It's not just one success, and been a string of successes recently.

So, but it is far more significant obviously for

the government in Baghdad, for the Iraqi people, for the people of Ramadi, and

potentially for the other places that are likely to be liberated here in the future.

Now there are a lot of countries that have a lot more to lose in that region

than certainly than the United States does.

What should be the U.S. role in encouraging those countries to be more directly

...