General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI think we're going to end up back in a full fledged war in the Middle East.
The U.S. will not stay out of it. It already isn't. And military "advisers" on the ground has generally led to a more robust engagement. I just don't see the U.S. standing by while a contiguous radical Islamic Caliphate is established in parts of Iraq and Syria.
ISIS has had stunning success. Overnight, they captured more territory and 4 towns near or on the border. The Iraq Army, mind bogglingly, is out of hellfire missiles and has only two Cessna aircraft to fire said missiles from.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/iraqi-military-hellfires-battle-isis/story?id=24248493
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/06/sunni-rebels-seize-more-towns-iraq-2014622542922219.html
The U.S. has boxed itself into a response with years of rhetoric and warnings, with the terror, terror, terror culture and with the pressures always extant by the military-industrial complex.
The American public is strongly against it. President Obama is highly reluctant about it, but like a slow motion crash, we can see it coming.
If Isis are such a big threat, then surely there should be a multinational coalition to fight them?
Surely this is a fight between those who agree with secular values including freedom of religion and nondemocratic extremist theocrats?
cali
(114,904 posts)It may be skimpy but the U.S. still has the power to pressure and England sure seems like it's ginning up with pol pronouncements about how ISIS will perpetrate terror attacks in Great Britain.
It's a fight about oil and many other things.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,123 posts)CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)Maybe the best bet is to let the Sunnis govern the areas where there is no resistance to ISIS. (They will probably kick out the foreign fighters later on).
Then concentrate on stopping them marching on Shia or Kurdish dominated areas.
So there will eventually be a sort of stalemate.
cali
(114,904 posts)but reasonable rarely wins the day.
Loudly
(2,436 posts)Chechyians are Sunni, so Pooty's alignment with the Shia (e.g. Assad) is pretty clear cut.
America can and should sit this out. All embassy and state department personnel out. All military advisers out.
It's an easy call. Sentiment with regard to the fallen-in-vain must be set aside.
spanone
(135,885 posts)where the fuck did all that money go?
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)Once we stopped paying them, and stopped propping up Maliki's army with weapons and training, it all went to shit, because the only thing people seem to care about over there is their respective tribes, always jockeying for positions of power and control, always looking for revenge. If the Sunnis weren't already very disgruntled and alienated, this ISIS group would have had a much harder time taking over.
greytdemocrat
(3,299 posts)Anyone makes up their mind to do, really DO something,
it will be over.
And that might not be a bad thing.