I’m surprised by the lack of threads on this subject, especially right now when it looks like ISIS/ISIL is doing a major offensive push and putting them the closest they have been to the capital (less than 70 miles). :eek: This is also shaping up to be a major military as well as humanitarian disaster from a couple of perspectives. First off, ISIS/ISIL is notorious for executions of pretty much anyone who opposed them, including captured soldiers but also civilians (there was a story of them executing a 3 year old girl who’s dad was fighting against them). In addition, the government of Iraq is rushing in militia forces…Shia militia forces into a predominantly Sunni area and fighting against radical Sunnis in the form of ISIS/ISIL. So, this could be a perfect storm of nastiness and a total blood bath.
For debate…well, what now? The US has kind of taken a back seat in this and left it up to the Iraqis (and Iran) to do the heavy lifting on the ground. We (and the other allies) are mostly providing air support and some logistics and probably intelligence reports. Should we just leave it there? Officials were pretty skeptical that Ramadi could or would fall (or even that ISIS/ISIL was serious about attacking it), but it seems to have fallen fairly easily (though, from unconfirmed reports it’s cost ISIS/ISIL a lot of troops killed and wounded taking it). Should we become more involved, or just leave it up to the Iraqis to deal with and continue to simply provide the level of support we currently are doing (or maybe even pull back…any opinions welcome)?
The president should have used his executive power to launch a blitzkrieg on ISIS when they were just a small band of crazy fucks.
Instead, he sat on his ass for 6 months, more concerned with distinguishing ISIS as “not Islamic” than dealing with the seeds of a death cult bent on regional domination.
Iraq was horse shit. A lie. ISIS was the right time to use military force.
Now we sit with our thumbs up our asses and watch the cancer spread.
Two presidents in a row who are complete failures at foreign policy.
It certainly complicates things. Are the Iranians involved? I see this as a Sunni-Shia war. It is best that we NOT get involved, because we will wind up backing thre wrong side (whichever side we pick).
Another consequence of foolishly getting involved in Middle eastern wars.
To the question of “Now what?” I don’t think anyone has a clue.
I suspect that the ISIS thing is going to turn into a 10 year long war, similar to Viet Nam (though I hate to say it). The reason I suspect that is that I believe the guys in charge of ISIS are truly other directed. If it is true that the leaders really want a caliphate, well, reasoning with other directed people is just about impossible. Since reasoning, bargining and the like are out, that leaves war. And the troops, well, I suspect that they will go along as long as it seems ISIS is winning. Even if ISIS starts losing, the whole beheading thing make desertion a very unsexy option.
Throw in the Sunni/Shia hatefest and it is a mess.
I believe that we will end up fighting over there along with Europe. I believe that it will take a while and a whole lot of beheadings before we get there but I believe it will happen. The reason I think it will happen is that the ISIS guys ain’t gonna quit. ISIS wants genocide and a return to seventh century culture. Takfiri doctrine is very black and white, either you are a believer or a nonbeliever. Nonbelievers must die to purify islam. How do you argue against that?
So, my guess is right now we don’t do a whole lot. Lots of innocent people die. ISIS will continue to win for a while. And, at some point, we (we being the U.S. and Europe) put boots on the ground. Probably after a whole lot of beheadings.
I think we have a choice, go all in right now and try and take out all the leadership of ISIS or continue on with what we have been doing and end up mired in a long running conflict that escalates over time.
Exactly when and more importantly WHERE were we supposed to launch this “blitzkrieg”? Other than completely carpet-bombing large portions of the ME, how were we going to “deal with the seeds of a death cult”?
Not to mention, this president using his executive power to do anything other than going to the john would have whipped the rightwing-nutjob contingent into a rabid frenzy. The military can’t even do training exercises in Texas without screams of “MARTIAL LAW! MARTIAL LAW!!” :smack: When we were provided air support – AIR SUPPORT – in Libya, the GOP was hauling out the “Obama is a dictator!” rhetoric on Meet the Press.
Getting us into another groundwar in the ME was not going to happen.
Sort of makes me wonder how close,the American southwest, is to the Iraq theatre. Desert = Desert, or not even close. What I am thinking, is Jade Helm actually the dress rehersal for Desert Storm 3.
I see no reason to think this. I think it makes sense to train in various terrains, including desert, regardless of whether or not it’s for some specific future plan.
We should stick with the strategy that we are currently using because it is working. People are acting like we lost a major battle to ISIS when it is more like we and the Iraqi government left Ramadi to them. We did not put up the level of support you saw in Tikrit or Kobane and that is because its of relatively less value to us at this time. When the time comes to retake it, the militias and army will have our air support at a level that makes it clear what the difference is between us supporting a battle with strategic value and killing a few more terrorists who are impaling themselves on a relatively useless conquest.
Time is on our side in this and we should use it to our advantage. We are training Syrians and Iraqis to fight ISIS, the Kurds and Shiites are getting more organized everyday and our intelligence seems to be pretty good.
Now you wash your hands and walk away. Perhaps extend some air support and material assistance to the Kurds, whom have actually shown willingness to fight for themselves. For the rest, they will have to fight the master they don’t want or live with the master they didn’t fight. Perhaps the Sunni population even prefer ISIS to the Baghdad government, if so they can have their wish fulfilled. If the Iranians wish to involve themselves they should be most welcome. The Saudis/Qatari/etc. should be heavily discouraged from further involvement since all those fuckers touch turn to shit.
Alternatively, I believe ISIS is a lot weaker than they appear. It’s just that they have met little in the way of organized, well trained and determined opposition. But you can can start a kickstarter campaign to raise money for a well trained and well equipped mercenary army which could kick their ass. But once ISIS is gone something similar with a different name will just reappear.
Success is relative, but I’ll see no Americans dying and no hundreds-of-billions wasted as a big “success”. Spending hundreds of billions and thousands of American lives in utterly destroying ISIS would look like a complete failure to me, especially considering that we would then have to stay for a generation or more to prevent ISIS 2.0 from popping up.
ISIS will overrun and conquer Iraq. Civilians, police, and government leaders will be slaughtered. ISIS will then move on to it’s next targeted victims.
And in the pockmarked soil tulips would have bloomed.
This point of view baffles me. We’ve tried to bomb the ME into submission, and a whole lot of good it’s done us. Groups will always step into the vacuum and try and dominate. I guess we’re supposed to set up shop and spend untold TRILLIONS and lives indefinitely.
The thing is, ISIS can only capture and hold areas with substantial Sunni majorities, and it turns out that this is a small fraction of Iraq.
The Iraqi army is run by the Iraqi government, which is controlled by the majority Shia. Apparently the Iraqi army has no ability to operate in majority Sunni areas. I suspect that when the Iraqi/Shia army is defending majority Shia areas–like Baghdad–the results will be quite different. If nothing else they can ask Iran to send some help.