expand into Syria.

After that, all bets (and promises) are off.

Last edited Sun Sep 7, 2014, 11:50 PM - Edit history (1)

war effort.

Around 10-11 years ago...........

Yeah, right.

The problem with Bush's strategy (not even considering the illegality) was that he didn't send enough ground troops and vastly underestimated the timeframe.

It is insane that we are going to be proxy the proxy air force for a fledgling country and then for a fledgling army and expect success. Of course, if you don't really define success, you can't fail, can you?

We must really suck now, compared to then.

from people in the underground in every Nazi-occupied country, as well as from Canada, the UK, and the USSR, to name a few.

We also mobilized millions of men, bombed civilians with millions of tons of bombs from tens of thousands of bombers and didn't care about certain war crimes involving killing tens of thousands of civilians back then......We don't do most of that today

Well, WW2 was total war. The entire capacities of nation states were directed towards the war effort. This is a much more limited sort of action.

Also, the involvement of Russia in the East (where the overwhelming majority of fighting and dying was done) was critical to achieving victory against Nazi Germany in that timeframe. Without Russia, the war would have gone on far longer.

Whatever it takes.

Not.

ideology will spawn.

Because bombing inside Syria is just paranoid silliness, right?

How can you destroy IS without military action in Syria?

In fact given the Saudis are the very root of the Is problem, wouldn't it make more sense - in the "solver problems with bombs" paradigm - to reduce Riyadh to rubble before we even think about Raqqah?

This is a never ending mess we have gotten ourselves in to. Maybe we should have left the Middle East alone to begin with.

Yes, we are in a royal mess to be sure. Would we have been better off not getting involved in wars in the Middle East? Absolutely. The problem is we can't take it back now. We're stuck dealing with the situation as it is. And it's a mess with only a set of bad options on how to start cleaning it up.

And if we and some of our allies weren't guilty of equally horrific acts. We have no credibility and
perpetuating the killing certainly won't help. So count me out, please.

I understand why you're angry. It's a messy business and either way people are going to die. If we confront ISIS we will kill people. Hopefully mostly bad guys, but it is indeed very likely that innocents will be killed and maimed too, no matter the precautions taken. If we don't confront ISIS they will continue their slaughter across the Middle East leaving a tail of dead and brutalized civilians in their wake. I suspect that far more innocent lives will be lost by not acting than by acting. Can I prove this? No. But given the sheer brutality and bloodlust of ISIS, I believe it.

It is indeed a mess, and a powerful lesson on the law on unintended consequences.

Leave the fighting to Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. we offer our aid, but they are the core actors. let the locals handle the local problem, with our hands only involved on request or under direst necessity (such as a repeat of the yazidi near-genocide.)

This would require the US to treat iran and syria as members of the international community, instead of wayward vassals to be crushed and humiliated. It would involve letting Iraq sort itself out, and living with the result, instead of wrestling it to get the state(s) we demand in Mesopotamia. It's a pretty radical departure from standing US policy, but if we want IS to be gone, and we want it to not come back, well, this is what it takes.

Everything we do ourselves will be seen as a foreign imposition.

I think that's wise advice, and I think it's close to the policy that Obama will implement. I think American air power will continue to be heavily used, but the ground fighting will be left to regional allies. It is critical that Arab forces be involved - hopefully Gulf states (time to put your money where your mouth is Saudis). This is very important to winning back support from disenfranchised Sunnis from whom ISIS draws significant support currently. You are likely right that US forces will only be seen as foreign invasion and interference. I think Obama intends to avoid that.

I'm not at all sure that Iran or Syria will be included (I highly suspect not), but I think you are right that we can and should take an interest in bringing these states into the international community. Particularly Iran. However, I also think that these states have to recognize that this inclusion will very much depend upon their willingness to reject the support of terrorism, and their respect for basic human rights.

After all, IS is operating in Syria and has its strongholds there. We can either work with Syria, or we can make it a war agaisnt Syria - a move that will burn our asses badly, as our other Arab "allies" will see it as naked aggression and will abandon whatever coalition we've helped set up.

Iran too, is necessary; it's an ally of Iraq, and has the most capable military force in the region (unless we bring Israel in, which, uh... inadvisable. Unlikely Israel wants to get involved anyway.) it does bring the problem of being a Shia state operating against sunni forces in this case. But sometimes pragmatism trumps preference. The Supreme leader of iran has also announced that it's cool to interact with the US in response to IS. So... there's that.

rather than something dynamic that grows and morphs just like a cancer.

That they can predict a time frame for "destroying" it makes me highly skeptical about everything they are saying.

There will just be another group of nut jobs to take their place.
These violent religious factions need to be taken care of by their own people and not the USA.

to get the maximum mileage out of it"