So while I think a conversation larger than the IS needs to happen about our constant interventionism (we meddle like were goddamned Mary Worth), this puts a nice bow on my what would I do thoughts. --- Even if limited to airstrikes, whether from F-16s, cruise missiles or drones, military action by Washington would almost certainly kill civilians, especially since ISIS is concentrated in heavily populated cities. Worse, such action would inflame, not ease, Iraq’s sectarian divisions, allying Washington more closely with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s monumentally corrupt and sectarian regime and against a seething Sunni population, and would send recruits streaming into ISIS’s camp. ... Washington opposes ISIS in Iraq but supports the armed opposition to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, which includes that selfsame ISIS along with many other Islamist militias, including the Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda ally. By arming and training Syrian fighters (mostly through proxies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar), the Obama administration helped create space in Syria for ISIS to grow. Although Al Qaeda broke with ISIS because the latter was too indiscriminately violent, ISIS grew more powerful in northern and eastern Syria with funding from wealthy private sources in the Gulf states. It erased much of the Syria-Iraq border, built camps in Anbar and seized Falluja in January. In essence, the wars in Syria and Iraq have merged into one. The best step Obama can take now is to back off in Syria, ending support for the rebels there and seeking to work with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Russia in search of a regional political solution. Rather than compound the suffering with more American missiles, Obama should provide humanitarian relief for the estimated half-million refugees who have fled the ISIS offensive. The region is already buckling under the strain of what has become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis because of the Syrian war, which nearly 3 million have fled, with more than twice that number internally displaced. The most constructive action from Washington would be to send food, clothing, shelter and medicine to relieve the suffering. In some ways, the conflicts in Iraq and Syria are proxy wars that pit Saudi Arabia against Iran, and have plunged the region into a sectarian rivalry, with Riyadh and Tehran backing Sunnis and Shiites, respectively. So the next thing Obama ought to do—rather than bomb Iraq—is to encourage a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 03:23:11 +0000
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