Fight ISIS? You're Kidding, Why?

Fight ISIS? You're Kidding, Why?

Paul Avallon

With a political eye on an electorate understandably reluctant to get involved in another foreign war, the Obama administration waited until after the mid-term elections to announce the deployment of an additional fifteen-hundred "non-combat" combat troops to Iraq in an attempt to halt the advance of ISIS.

And ho-hum, the announcement made nary a ripple in the public consciousness. It's as if, a thousand here, a thousand there, another thousand hither and yon, as long as none of those troops are coming home on litters or in caskets—with video topping the evening newscasts—no one really cares, and whatever America is doing over there in Iraq really isn't war. Is it? 

The president sure isn't calling it a war, not America's part. Rather, it's just a bit of tactical advising and surgical bombing, a minimalist approach to war-making, for any of which the president has little stomach. It's not difficult to read President Obama's mind and heart, that he's wishing ISIS could be relegated back to their once-JV status, at least for another two years, at which time he can pass off the problem to the next president.

Today, no one is calling ISIS the JV squad, and the president's additional fifteen-hundred advisers may keep ISIS from storming through the gates of Baghdad in the coming months, but no one is making the argument that this tiptoeing, combat-free strategy will push ISIS from the territory they have captured nor eliminate their threat to the rest of the Middle East.

And again, it's ho-hum, as if Americans don't even want to think about an oppressive and expanding Islamic State. The occasional beheading that pops up in the media startles us, but only for a moment, as we immediately tune it out. If we were to consider seriously the jihadists' barbaric actions in the name of the Caliphate, then we would have to accept that the Caliphate is by definition uncompromising, and as such we would have to steel ourselves to vanquish those fighting for it. Steel ourselves for war, complete war, not a couple of thousand non-combat bootless troops here and there willy-nilly.

Thrice bitten, once shy, we opt to bury our heads in the sand. We once applauded George W's lickety-split defeat of the Taliban, only to learn to regret the war during the following thirteen years of costly, failed nation-building. We once rah-rahed the quick overthrow of Saddam Hussein, only to become angry and cynical from the false justifications for the war and the ugly, embarrassing defeat it nearly brought us. And we then voted a man for president who promised to get us out of Iraq, down to the last GI, only to get us to today's ISIS.

Yes, rightly our heads are in the sand. And there isn't a national elected leader—not Democrat, not Republican—willing to make the argument for an all-out war against ISIS Islamofascism. Shy of another 9/11 jihadist attack here at home, we would not listen to one. And even in such a situation, in spite of our having learned from the failures of these past wars, I doubt that our enlightened, holier-than-thou, clean-hands culture would allow our military to fight such a civilian-sheltered enemy with the aggressive fire-with-fire brutality necessary to vanquish them, flattening their villages and leaving their lands sown with salt.  

In the meanwhile, a strategy of a few thousand bootless troops on the ground and fearful, excessively selective aerial bombing is equivalent to bringing beanbags to a gangbanger turf war. Better to stay home.

Which is exactly what the president's better instincts tell him. Except, those handful of beheadings of Americans make for bad homefront PR, and what president wants to appear a wimp? As, what president wants his legacy to forever include video of  the world's largest embassy (United States, Baghdad) burning to the ground?

Show real courage, Mr. President. The American people will not allow you to wage an all-out, bloody and costly war to defeat ISIS Islamofascism, and you are well aware that the present beanbag strategy is simply a temporary stopgap to a coming onslaught, which presents you the opportunity to make a decision that is both rational and moral. Order out of Iraq as rapidly as possible the entire American military and diplomatic presence. With specific instructions: As the last helicopter lifts from the embassy roof, the entire compound is to be leveled to rubble by explosive charges.

Sure, your critics will whine that we can't let Iraq fail, we just can't, boo hoo hoo. Your polite and reasoned argument in return, Mr. President? Five-fold:

1)  It's not your war. You were one of the few voices in 2003 against the invasion that removed the one Iraqi who could today defeat ISIS, Saddam Hussein. That was Bush's mistake, not yours.  With Saddam in power today there would be no ISIS in Iraq.

2)  It's not our oil. Why should we Americans further concern ourselves with the huge Iraqi oil reserves when we have plenty here ourselves and plenty-plus up in Canada just a pipeline away? As for the Europeans, if they're so dependent upon Iraqi oil, well good gosh, let them commit to whoop-ass on ISIS. 

3)  If the Iraqi people themselves (insurgents, homegrown and imported) once could bring the world's mightiest military power to its knees—us, in the guerrilla warfare that had us defeated until General Petraeus wrestled a victory out of it—then they surely can defeat a bunch of 7th century saber-swingers.

4)  Repeat #3 above. It's extremely important; if the Iraqis do not have the same will to fight and defeat ISIS that they had to fight us, they deserve their fate. (This, Mr. President, is bound to get a rousing five-minute standing-O from crowds coast-to-coast.)

5)  Granted, your new hands-off policy will facilitate the Caliphate Effect (an off-shoot of the Domino Theory) in establishing a swath of Islamofascism from Pakistan west to Morocco and from Turkey south to Somalia, leaving Israel a tiny atoll whose only practical self-defense would be nuclear. Because by nature you cannot accept nuke warfare (first-strike or retaliatory) as an option, you should hereby declare our borders open for mass Israeli immigration. At the same time you can commandeer all Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Princess cruise ships to do the ferrying. After all, if we Americans are welcoming as legal immigrants millions of low-skilled Third World Latin Americans, we should surely open our arms even wider for highly-educated First World Israelis who, come the Caliphate, will be true refugees.

Go ahead, Mr. President, show true grit and take and run with 1-5 above. It beats trying to futilely persuade a tuned-out American populace as to the necessity of stopping dead in its tracks the coming Caliphate Effect.

And it sure beats fighting a war. Doesn't it?