Monday, November 16, 2015

Never Trust Assertive Rightwingers, Ever

The Right is full of itself right now, blaming Obama for terrorist violence that never was in his power to control. The only way to exert stronger control in the chaotic void of NE Syria is 'boots on the ground.' Let's scope out what a U.S. military intervention might mean.

The current array of forces greatly benefits Israel. A front-line state, Syria, is so gravely weakened by the fight with Daesh (aka ISIS) that it currently poses little threat. Doing a U-turn on current policy and inserting U.S. troops would at first greatly benefit the Assad regime, and thus ally us with Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, immediately posing a greater threat to Israel.

Obama has been trying containment, because that strategy minimizes risk. The violence in Paris doesn't change that calculus at all. Obama had victories last week. 'Jihadi John' was killed in Syria and Abu Nabil was killed in Libya, blunting ISIS expansion there. Terrorist operations in France, if anything, demonstrate the desperation of ISIS to change the political dynamic. Rededicating ourselves to smarter, better containment is the best approach.

(My main complaint about current containment was selling out the Kurds in August to get access to Turkish military bases. The Kurds are 'boots on the ground.' It's not worth selling them out.)

It's not hard to find examples of U.S. Middle East idiocy. John McCain has been so eager to intervene in the Syrian situation, out of ignorance, he appeared with ISIS representatives. Trusting warmongers with greater influence in the Middle East is a guaranteed losing situation, because they are too ignorant to win.

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