Washington to Whomever: Please Fight the Islamic State for Us

[eridani]

http://www.thenation.com/article/washington-to-whomever-please-fight-the-islamic-state-for-us/

In the many strategies proposed to defeat the Islamic State (IS) by presidential candidates, policymakers, and media pundits alike across the American political spectrum, one common element stands out: someone else should really do it. The United States will send in planes, advisers, and special ops guys, but it would be best—and this varies depending on which pseudo-strategist you cite—if the Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Sunnis, and/or Shias would please step in soon and get America off the hook.

The idea of seeing other-than-American boots on the ground, like Washington’s recently deep-sixed scheme to create some “moderate” Syrian rebels out of whole cloth, is attractive on paper. Let someone else fight America’s wars for American goals. Put an Arab face on the conflict, or if not that at least a Kurdish one (since, though they may not be Arabs, they’re close enough in an American calculus). Let the United States focus on its “bloodless” use of air power and covert ops. Somebody else, Washington’s top brains repeatedly suggest, should put their feet on the embattled, contested ground of Syria and Iraq. Why, the United States might even gift them with nice, new boots as a thank-you.

Is this, however, a realistic strategy for winning America’s war(s) in the Middle East?

<snip>

The Obama/Clinton/Sanders/Cruz/Rubio/Pentagon/et al. solution—let someone else fight the ground war against IS—is based on what can only be called a delusion: that regional forces there believe in American goals (some variant of secular rule, disposing of evil dictators, perhaps some enduring US military presence) enough to ignore their own varied, conflicting, aggrandizing, and often fluid interests. In this way, Washington continues to convince itself that local political goals are not in conflict with America’s strategic goals. This is a delusion.

In fact, Washington’s goals in this whole process are unnervingly far-fetched. Overblown fears about the supposedly dire threats of the Islamic State to “the homeland” aside, the American solution to radical Islam is an ongoing disaster. It is based on the attempted revitalization of the collapsed or collapsing nation-state system at the heart of that region. The stark reality is that no one there—not the Gulf states, not the Kurds, not the Turks, not the Sunnis, nor even the Shia—is fight

[CJCRANE]

1. Good article

except it's inaccurate to say that the royal family mentioned is secular.

[LuvNewcastle]

2. I agree with the article.

Just about any effort over there is doomed. We might as well sit back and see what happens for now. If a coalition builds, we can support that effort if we choose, but sending Americans over there and trying to force some kind of alliance is not a good idea. Sure, we fucked it up, but that doesn't mean we should be the ones to restore order over there. If anything, we should realize our lack of competence when it comes to dealing with that part of the world and concentrate on our problems at home. Some people don't want us to deal with those problems, though.

[BillZBubb]

3. Our track record in that region is one of utter failure.

The idiot in chief, dubya, kicked the bottom card out of the house of cards there and unleashed this torrent of fanaticism. In the immortal words of Condoliar Rice, "No one could have seen that coming!". Except for anyone with a brain.

There is no easy fix to this mess. If we do nothing, there will continue to be a huge refugee problem, atrocities will be a daily occurrence, hundreds of thousands of innocents will be slaughtered and the region will be in turmoil for decades. Then there will be the terrorism spillover into Europe and the US.

On the other hand, full military intervention by the US and the West will result in many of the same problems while only temporarily putting a lid on the score settling in the region.

Trying to finesse a policy in between doing nothing and full intervention is a losing proposition. That appears to be what the US and West are trying to do. It is probably the worst of three terrible options.

We've proven we can't effectively act in the region. The best option for us is to stay out of it. That seems cruel, but none of the other choices will be less cruel in the end. Let the locals sort it out. Eventually they will come to some sort of stability. Our efforts should be working to contain the problem within the Middle East, limiting arms sales there, and providing humanitarian aid when the situation permits it.

[oberliner]

5. You write that if we do nothing there will be hundreds of thousands of innocents slaughtered

And that the region will be in turmoil for decades (and terrorism will spill over to the US and Europe).

Yet, you still advocate doing nothing?

[bemildred]

6. The region has been in turmoil for decades and terror is spliiling over in the West.

So that is doing nothing.

And that is still better than continuing to make it worse and maybe sucking China and India in too.

[oberliner]

4. That last sentence makes no sense

Was part of it cut off?

[MisterP]

7. isn't that how we GOT AQ and then IS? and then a few years later we'll just repeat the whole

process against whoever we used as proxies in 2016?