An interesting piece from a new source on the scene, elite daily:
Military intervention can quell the violence for a time, but once troops depart, the conflict inevitably resurfaces with new tenacity. Only now, you’ve placed yourself front and center as a champion for the opposition, whomever it may be.
When we choose sides in this conflict, even when it’s undeniably the right side, becoming a visible presence on the ground, opposition forces turn to their young and say, “Do you see the American oppressors? They are taking your land and destroying your cities? This is why we fight. This is why you must fight.”
They might be wrong, but that doesn’t matter. The cycle continues.
The cause is noble, but this is not the type of war that can be won. As Hoffman warned, we can never fully predict what will happen next.
With its money and resources, ISIS could become a global terrorist force that makes al-Qaeda seem tame by comparison. Or, it could unravel from infighting or missteps. No one can know with certainty, and don’t believe anyone who suggests otherwise.
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested in a Financial Times op-ed Sunday that “ISIS and other al-Qaeda-type groups in Iraq were flat on their back four years ago, having been comprehensively beaten by a combination of US and UK forces and Sunni tribes,” and that “The civil war in Syria allowed them to get back on their feet.”
Perhaps ISIS exploited the opportunity to exercise its authority amid Syria’s collapse, but even without Syria, prevailing instability in the region would have provided opportunities to ISIS or other extremist elements to surface following the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
I am not arguing that the United States should simply remove itself from the situation entirely. Only that we should proceed with caution.
We must learn to identify when there is a credible existential threat. In those situations, we should move tactically to reduce such threats. But large-scale, boots on the ground intervention historically results in greater problems down the line.
Iraq, Afghanistan and even Vietnam have shown us that the United States has neither the military resources nor the political resolve to successfully build a friendly democracy abroad. It has, however, shown us that we are capable of creating new, more dangerous enemies, wherever we’ve tried.
Now, as we wrangle with how to respond to the threat ISIS poses in Iraq, we should tread gingerly. ISIS might be stopped, but militant Sunni jihadists cannot. They’ll undoubtedly resurface in time, just as they always have.
With that in mind, we really can’t afford to “f*ck up the endgame,” again.
Photo courtesy: CB
No comments:
Post a Comment