Discussion for article #227198
Yeah. The ship sailed on containment when Baby Bush decided to smash the container. This is well and truly now a problem that needs to be dealt with. While I believe we need to be winning hearts and minds, I also believe that when the house is on fire you call the fire department. Hopefully that means backing a proxy force that can truly create inroads on the battlefield without having our DNA all over it. And hopefully that force does not engage in the sort of atrocities that ISIS engages in. And hopefully a political solution will fill in over time that is more palatable than ISIS and the previous “container”
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Good for Hagel. The way I read that, containing ISIS would mean boots on the ground for an indefinite period of time, which is what the neocons and stenographers in the press seem to be advocating for and filling the airways with lately. Containment requires our constant presence back in Iraq to monitor and maintain troops on the ground as force protection against hostilities towards civilian populations by ISIS. I don’t believe that’s in the cards.
I think this administration’s objective will be to bomb the hell out of them with actionable intelligence provided by allies (hopefully with the help of Arab states that have been all too complacent to date), thereby degrading the leadership and capacity to advance on further territory. Sounds like a plan. No more long term entanglements.
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Lotta hopefullys there. Kinda like trying to use powder musket.
Sounds to me like they might have a strategy. Only this one is being carefully thought out. Probably even has an exit plan.
Yeah, well. I’m just being realistic. Our history suggests this may actually be getting thrown around as serious policy among those who will decide.
I agree we have to get the Arab states involved because it is in their own interest to do so. The U.S. should not have to be biggest presence in the Middle East. We need to divorce ourselves from this region after we do what we can to destroy ISIS. It should not be our job to solve all the world’s problems. Yes, we created this problem by going into Iraq because of oil.
I was watching a clip of Wesley Clark saying there is a reason we aren’t in Africa. They don’t have oil.
There was only a tiny sliver in NE Iraq where al qiada was present when we went in with guns blazing. ISIS is a spin off from them. ISIS formed in Syria to fight off Al Asad and we secretly shipped weapons through Turkey to help them out in their fight against Asad. Now they’ve become a monster and the reason we find ourselves bombing our own weapons is because we gave them to ISIS.
They way you destroy ISIS is not through US military effort alone. Hell, that might make them more popular for those wanting to pursue “jihadi cool” status. No, it is to degrade them, marginalize them in the discussion, and make them irrelevant.