Can’t Ignore ISIS Away
In an administration marked foreign policy failures, it is hard to narrow down its biggest blunder. But, I believe I have done so. Obama’s handling of ISIS is one of the biggest fiascos in American foreign policy history. After so much blood and treasure was spent on stabilizing Iraq, Obama fiddled while Iraq-and the entire Middle East-burned. His half-hearted attempt to combat ISIS is actually worse than doing nothing. It makes the U.S. look weak and incapable of projecting our power overseas. It has been long known that Obama has no strategy to defeat ISIS aside from saying he is going to defeat ISIS. Most recently, Obama’s strategy seems to be, “if I ignore ISIS, they will go away”. Wrong.
The longer ISIS exists, the stronger militant Islam becomes. Thus, the threat to America abroad and at home increases. The story of how we came to this dismal point, is paved by constant mistakes/miscalculations by Obama and his advisors. The first error was prematurely removing all U.S. troops from Iraq. The Iraqi army, clearly, was incapable of operating independently of American forces. This was proven by their consistently poor performance against the ISIS blitzkrieg. In Mosul they literally dropped their weapons and ran. Also, the Iraqi army left behind tons of American equipment. Humvees, MRAPs, tanks and small arms all added to the ISIS order of battle. This ensures defeating ISIS will be an even bloodier affair than it needed to be.
While it can be argued that we should not have invaded Iraq in the first place-the fact is we did. We cannot change yesterday. By invading Iraq we took ownership of that nation’s future. Like Colon Powell said, “You break it, you buy it”. Thousands of American soldier’s lives and billions of dollars later, Obama seemed to believe the best course of action was to abandon Iraq to its fate. During the Iraq war, the precursor to ISIS was al-Qaeda in Iraq. US forces hunted these terrorist to the edge of extinction. They scurried off to the western deserts of Iraq to lick their wounds and rebuild their murder machine. At that moment, Obama-who wanted out of Iraq anyway he could-decided to declare victory and pack up all American forces and ship them home. By not leaving any forces behind and by prematurely declaring victory, he enabled al-Qaeda in Iraq to rebuild and rebrand as ISIS. Now they are worse than ever.
The fact that ISIS even exists is a political nightmare for Obama. After bragging about ending the war in Iraq successfully in speech after speech, his foreign policy judgement was proven to be less-than in tune with reality. Once ISIS began its reign of terror, Obama proved to be stunned to the point of inaction. After they took town after town and beheaded American after American, the best Obama has to offer is a handful of US advisors, a pitifully small amount of airstrikes and big talk about how he will destroy ISIS. The net effect of this lack of action by the Obama administration is, no action. ISIS is still murdering and raping its way across the Middle East and the Iraqi army still remains combat ineffective. If the situation remains unchanged, the best we can hope for is a bloody stalemate, which would actually be in itself an ISIS victory.
It’s time to face reality! Other countries are not going to solve our problems for us. I know Obama and liberals in general, have this Vietnam fixation, where if you escalate combat action we inevitable get into a quagmire. Destroying ISIS does not have to involve a long term military debacle. The fact is, we, meaning Obama, blew the only chance we had for a stable Iraq. By leaving the embryonic Iraqi army to the wolves, ISIS took advantage of their less-than-stellar combat readiness. This fact leaves no good possible options.
I have criticized Obama’s many failures regarding ISIS. So I had better have a plan to remedy the situation. It just so happens I do & most of you will not like it. As a matter-of-fact, I don’t like it either. But the situation has degenerated to this being the only logical conclusion. As I see it we have 3 options:
1. Do nothing and let ISIS take over Iraq &-more than likely-the entire Middle East.
2. Continue with our half-hearted attempt to curb ISIS which will inevitably end the same as number 1.
3. Stop depending on others to solve our problems and commit our own military forces to the Middle East with the limited objective of the destruction of the ISIS military threat.
I am not a fan of option 3, however, I believe this is the only shot we have to neutralize the ISIS threat. What the President-and his advisors-fail to realize is weakness leads to more war, not less. Their “hands-off” approach to foreign policy, has led to a power vacuum that has been filled by ISIS & Iran; the two worst possible groups we could possible imagine running things in the Middle East.
Unfortunately, American blood will have to be shed to protect the US from this scourge. ISIS has beheaded multiple US citizens plus inspired attacks within our borders. The threat will only grow. Air Force & Naval airstrikes need to be stepped up. Special Forces & other force multipliers must be added to the fight, not merely as advisors, but as combatants. Rangers, paratroopers, armor gunships and medical/logistical footprint need to be added as well. Within 6 months, the ISIS tide would be reversed. The standard bearers of Islamic extremism would be no more.
I regret that Obama’s weakness has led us to this undesirable situation. But it has. In the final analysis, we cannot wish ISIS away. The only way to eliminate this threat is to place it 6-feet underground. There is no middle ground to be found with ISIS. No negotiations are possible. They seek only victory or death. If we are not willing to give up the American way of life, that we must make death their fate.
