ISIS et al

[cellio]

Dear Mr. President,

Please allow me to propose a strategy for dealing with ISIS, since you've said you don't have one but seem to be reaching for the "fire" button for a war that does not have clear national objectives. Please try this one instead:

"Dear Arab world: You sow what you reap. You arm, finance, and encourage Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Qaida on the one hand but look to us to bail you out from ISIS and friends on the other. What chutzpah. Until you decide that terrorism and brutality are not acceptable even when directed against Jews and westerners, you're on your own. Let's see how that works out for you."

Seriously, why are we even considering helping Syria??? Yes, I know there is a humanitarian crisis. There was one before ISIS too, at Assad's hands. Government-directed humanitarian crises have a long and sad history in the middle east.

The state sponsors of terror will never change their ways if they know they can get our help when those terrorists turn their gazes palace-ward. This is not our fight, and it'll be good for them to learn a lesson, even though there is a civilian cost. We should stay out of it.

Comments

[richardf8]

My argument is that instead of helping any of the parties in Syria, we should have been helping Israel to crush Hamas, which is a natural ally of ISIS.. ISIS and Hamas share a common goal: an uninterrupted Islamic state in the Levant. The elimination of Hamas (and the Muslim Brotherhood which also shares this goal) would deal a serious setback and also close the western front in that battle. What is happening on Israel's northern border is the northern front and what is happening in Iraq is the Eastern front.

[cellio]

Oh, no argument from me on that! The world (the UN collectively and many nations individually) is perfectly happy to throw Israel under the bus, making outrageous demands that they would never accept if made against any other country. The US hasn't been treating its ally very well, to say the least.

That we haven't done anything about Hamas makes it even worse if we go after ISIS -- we'd be saying that Syrian blood is redder than that of our ally who is fighting a defensive war.

[richardf8]

I am noticing your user icon here.

And I think about where Israel is in all this.

"I am Gray
I stand between the candle and the star
We are Gray
We stand between the Darkness and the Light."

Hamas' charter makes it clear that it's goal is to bring the land of Israel under "the Shadow of Islam." This is the regional goal of ISIS.

If Israel falls, the darkness advances unimpeded.

I am always reminded of these lines when, in parshat Korach, it says of Aaron "ויעמוד בין המתים ובין החיים ותעצר המגפה."

"He stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped."

The world does not understand this. They think a reasonable solution, a political solution is possible. They have lost the capacity to believe there is such a thing as palpable Evil, that does not respond to reason, that does not 'give' in negotiations, that can only be resolved by being destroyed. They don't want to believe it, and I think they hate us because we understand it and they don't want to.

[cellio]

The icon was not an accident.

Hamas is an existential threat to Israel, the only bit of light in the region. We should care about that. If the US is going to enter the fray at all it should be to deal with that. ISIS is causing trouble for Syria and Iraq, neither of which is a friend to either the US or Israel. I don't see how letting them all shoot at each other (without US involvement) hurts our interests. Worse, if the US takes on ISIS, it's even less likely to also take on Hamas and Hezbollah.

So what am I missing? How is the US taking on ISIS good? I don't claim to be a skilled long-term strategist; if I'm missing something, please enlighten me.

[richardf8]

What you are missing is that I am not arguing that the US should take on ISIS.

But Israel is an interested party, both because Syria shares a border with it, and because the fighting is breaching that border. The fighting in Syria is uncontained. Hamas and ISIS are both transnational.

Your course, I think, would ensure an ISIS victory. My guess is that the next move would be a two front war involving Hamas and ISIS, who strike me as natural allies. I think that would be bad for Israel.

So I guess that I don't find much to oppose in the US operating against ISIS, but I think that needs to be coupled with support for a militarily robust Israel that is allowed to win its wars, because otherwise any victory against ISIS is pyrrhic.

[richardf8]

So I guess I have kind of convinced myself of something I did not believe at first.

[cellio]

What you are missing is that I am not arguing that the US should take on ISIS.

Ah. Yes, you are right that I was missing that. Thank you.

So I guess that I don't find much to oppose in the US operating against ISIS, but I think that needs to be coupled with support for a militarily robust Israel that is allowed to win its wars, because otherwise any victory against ISIS is pyrrhic.

And that's a very real concern, unfortunately -- the world's governmental bodies, including the US, have a pretty crappy record of actually letting Israel defend itself and win its wars.

(Though this time there's another problem, too. Netanyahu went from standing firm to effectively surrendering (! from a position of strength!) pretty quickly. WTF? I do not understand why he is giving Hamas anything without steps toward demilitarization. That looks crazy from over here.)

[richardf8]

I suspect this too has more to do with the US than with Netanyahu. If Obama puts the kibosh on weaponry, the military advantage disappears pretty quickly. During the course of the recent action Obama actually interfered with a shipment of Hellfire missiles. This is the way the US treats its ally. He really doesn't understand the Hamas and ISIS are the same thing. I'm to the point where, if he wants to go squander blood and treasure in Syria, meh, Gae Gesuntaheit. Maybe it'll teach him something about the nature of evil.