Here’s a list of what we’re trying to do in Syria:

1. Destroy ISIS.
2. Accelerate the removal of Bashar Assad and his regime.
3. Protect innocent civilians.
4. Minimize infrastructure and environmental damage.

Part of our problem is that these goals, particularly one and two, are contradictory.

ISIS launched an attack in Paris and at least inspiring, if not financing or training, an attack in San Bernardino, California. They want to launch more.

Bashar Assad is a butcher whose regime targets civilians, uses barrel bombs, summarily executes children, tortures foes and reportedly continues to use chemical weapons. He deserves the roughest justice that the United States and its allies, along with karma, can muster.

But, at least for now, he is not attempting to launch attacks against Americans, and ISIS is.

When you have a long and difficult to-do list, you have to prioritize; achieving your top goal sometimes requires putting your lesser priorities on the back burner. Winston Churchill once said, “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” If temporarily letting up on Assad’s regime makes life tougher for ISIS -- in a way that is decisive to our effort -- we should pursue that option. We can always go back and find creative ways to make Assad’s life miserable later.

In mid-November, U.S. pilots could only destroy 116 ISIS tanker trucks out of 300 parked in one place . . . because they ran out of ammunition.

We also apparently are unwilling to hit ISIS employees:

Warren explained that American officials were deeply worried about harming the truck drivers, who were working for the Islamic State but might not be ISIS themselves. U.S. officials settled on a plan to drop leaflets on the trucks about 45 minutes before the raid, warning the drivers that an attack was coming, while U.S. pilots flew low passes over the area. Planning all that took time.

Frankly, it would serve our national interest to make ISIS a really dangerous, undesired employer. No one remembers a World War II rallying cry, “Hold your fire! He’s just a Nazi contractor!” (As Clerks pointed out, if you agree to work on construction of a Death Star, you run the risk of working there when rebels blow it up.)

As of last month, the Kurds were 20 miles from Raqqa, the ISIS capital.

We have MOABs, the largest bomb short of a nuke that can be dropped on targets. We have fuel-air explosives. What would happen if we cleared the path for those Kurdish forces with those terrifyingly powerful bombs? Wouldn’t there at least be some morale and momentum value out of demonstrating the full power of the American arsenal?

Max Boot argues air power alone can’t win a war and that none of the ground forces around are capable of or interested in taking the war to ISIS in the way we need. But we know the U.S. military is capable of a much more powerful, much more active, much more destructive air campaign than we’re currently seeing. Why not turn it up to eleven? Wouldn’t those anti-ISIS ground forces get more aggressive if they saw ISIS front lines, convoys, and command structures reduced to flaming wreckage and shrapnel?

Yes, it would hurt priorities four – minimizing infrastructure and environmental damage -- and three -- avoiding civilian casualties. Perhaps one of the reasons radicals are so unfearful of war with the United States is because we put so much effort into preventing civilian casualties. We didn’t always prioritize avoiding these casualties; we killed 22,000–25,000 civilians just during three days of Dresden bombing. One of the rules we want almost literally everyone on earth to understand is that if you attack the United States, the consequences will be so severe and destructive to your cause, your people, and your allies that it is never, ever worth it. We obviously would never deliberately target civilians, but if we hear Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is in a building, there’s nothing wrong with taking out that building. In the bin Laden raid, we reportedly killed the courier, his brother, and his brother’s wife, in addition to bin Laden and his son. If you don’t want to die, don’t live under the same roof as the world’s most wanted terrorist.

Feel the Fading Bern

Briefly Wednesday night, the political world gasped at a surprising poll result, suggesting Bernie Sanders isn’t an afterthought . . .

The latest CNN/WMUR poll of New Hampshire’s likely Democratic primary voters tells a different story than that of national and Iowa polling, where Clinton holds double-digit leads.

The poll finds 50% of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire back Sanders, 40% Clinton, 1% former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

This New Hampshire poll does show a narrower margin for Sanders,

however, with the Democratic field trimmed to just three candidates. Clinton has gained 10 points since September, when Vice President Joe Biden took 14% of the vote in the last CNN/WMUR Poll. Over that same time, Sanders has gained 4 points.

Don’t start cranking up L’Internationale quite yet. In Iowa, Hillary’s up by 14 in the RCP average. Maybe because of the quirks of the low turnout in a caucus, that could tighten up, but since late October, Hillary’s numbers have jumped from the 40s to the mid-to-high 50s and stayed there. Sanders was tied there in early September, now he’s lost ground. There’s always room for late polling changes, but the history for outspoken, anti-war, hard-left Vermont Democrats in Iowa isn’t good. Howard Dean led the polls in Iowa until the final week and then he collapsed to third place. And that was before the “YEARRRGH!” scream.

Then it’s on to New Hampshire. Sure, maybe Sanders can win there; he’s helped by the geographical closeness. But that will also cause some people to dismiss a Sanders victory as virtual home-state advantage. Then it’s on to South Carolina, where Hillary leads by roughly . . . 50 points.

Nationally, Hillary leads Sanders by about 25 points. She hasn’t been below 50 percent in any poll among Democrats since mid-October. Sanders has indicated repeatedly that he won’t criticize her about her personal e-mail server, and he’s indicated several times in recent days he doesn’t want to talk about ISIS much because it’s a distraction from his domestic agenda.

Bernie Sanders isn’t running to become president. He’s running to become George McGovern -- the icon that inspires a generation of activists after him. He’s not interested in the War on Terror, national security, or foreign policy in general. He’s interested in that darn 1 percent and assuring people that the reason they don’t have enough money is because the “millyunahs and billyunahs,” as he calls them, are somehow taking it from them.

Fact-Checker: Hey, Wait, the Gun-Control Argument Is BS After All!

Thank heaven for small miracles: The Washington Post Fact-Checker concurs with Marco Rubio’s recent statement that no recent mass shootings would have been prevented by gun laws:

Rubio’s statement stands up to scrutiny -- at least for the recent past, as he framed it. Notably, three of the mass shootings took place in California, which already has strong gun laws including a ban on certain weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Gun-control advocates often point to the experience in other countries that have enacted gun laws that heavily restrict gun ownership; as we have shown, quantitative measures of cross-comparative crime statistics, especially where the crime is not consistently defined (i.e., “mass shooting”), usually end up being apples-to-oranges comparisons. It is possible that some gun-control proposals, such as a ban on large-capacity magazines, would reduce the number of dead in a future shooting, though the evidence for that is heavily disputed. But Rubio was speaking in the past, about specific incidents. He earns a rare Geppetto Checkmark.

ADDENDA: Coming either later today or tomorrow morning: a pop-culture podcast tackling Christmas movies and why It’s a Wonderful Life endures; the NFL, concussions and whether kids should play football; how success eroded George Lucas’s storytelling instincts, and how Victoria’s Secret managed to turn a fashion show into a prime-time televised event.