According to conservatives, 20,000 fanatics armed with scavenged weaponry have the US quivering at the knees. Not long ago, many of those same conservatives were demanding that Obama arm the Syrian rebels. Obama had enough of a grasp on the situation to realize that it would be impossible to make sure those weapons wouldn’t wind up in the hands of groups like ISIS or al-Nusra.ISIS is fighting a war on 3 fronts: Syria, Kurdistan & Iraq. ISIS has been checked on every front other than Syria at this point. They have been pushed back from by the Kurds. Bagdad has never been seriously threatened by ISIS. They simply don’t have the manpower to hold gains in Shia majority areas.Pushing ISIS out of Mosul will be harder & will requires someone to field troops on the ground. Perhaps someone can explain why Mosul is so critical to American interests that we should send troops if ISIS’ neighbors are unwilling to undergo the fight. Pushing ISIS & the other extremists out of Syria will be impossible until some semblance of consensus rises among the Syrians themselves to put a halt to their violence. It’s not a job for an occupier.ISIS has staked their reputation on actually maintaining some semblance of a state. It’s in their name: the Islamic State. If they are pushed out of major population centers, they can’t fade into remote areas as Al-Qaeda has done repeatedly, without losing most of their credibility among disaffected Sunnis.1400 years of Muslim history are filled with local warlords who declare themselves Caliphs. Most Caliphates were nearly as vicious as the average Hollywood marriage, with a shorter lifespan.Defeating ISIS is just a footnote in the lengthy job of combatting terrorism. Other groups as capable of carrying out violent attacks in the US, let alone Europe, Asia & Africa. Most of the people bashing Obama for not doing anything about ISIS when they were just another faction in the Syrian civil war, would do better to question what Obama is doing about those other groups.
According to conservatives, 20,000 fanatics armed with scavenged weaponry have the US quivering at the knees. Not long ago, many of those same conservatives were demanding that Obama arm the Syrian rebels. Obama had enough of a grasp on the situation to realize that it would be impossible to make sure those weapons wouldn’t wind up in the hands of groups like ISIS or al-Nusra.ISIS is fighting a war on 3 fronts: Syria, Kurdistan & Iraq. ISIS has been checked on every front other than Syria at this point. They have been pushed back from by the Kurds. Bagdad has never been seriously threatened by ISIS. They simply don’t have the manpower to hold gains in Shia majority areas.Pushing ISIS out of Mosul will be harder & will requires someone to field troops on the ground. Perhaps someone can explain why Mosul is so critical to American interests that we should send troops if ISIS’ neighbors are unwilling to undergo the fight. Pushing ISIS & the other extremists out of Syria will be impossible until some semblance of consensus rises among the Syrians themselves to put a halt to their violence. It’s not a job for an occupier.ISIS has staked their reputation on actually maintaining some semblance of a state. It’s in their name: the Islamic State. If they are pushed out of major population centers, they can’t fade into remote areas as Al-Qaeda has done repeatedly, without losing most of their credibility among disaffected Sunnis.1400 years of Muslim history are filled with local warlords who declare themselves Caliphs. Most Caliphates were nearly as vicious as the average Hollywood marriage, with a shorter lifespan.Defeating ISIS is just a footnote in the lengthy job of combatting terrorism. Other groups as capable of carrying out violent attacks in the US, let alone Europe, Asia & Africa. Most of the people bashing Obama for not doing anything about ISIS when they were just another faction in the Syrian civil war, would do better to question what Obama is doing about those other groups.