Let’s face it, whether it is out of a passionate belief that “God is on our side” or the outlandish hubris of rather successful religious conquest, the leaders and soldiers of the Islamic State want one thing more than life itself: a direct, head-to-head fight with the West and, without doubt, the United States. We’re the big dog, the biggest military, the symbol of everything Western they hate. They are doing everything in their power to draw us into battle, and if we don’t play in their yard, you can expect them to find a way to attack us here. They expect our revulsion at their beheadings and hope that it moves us to join the fight on the ground. They have watched our defeats in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. They love our squirming that Shiite powers, notably Iran and the leadership of Syria, are literally on the same side we are on this matter.
And, unlike too many of our elected representatives, they know that relegating our involvement to attacks from the air will never dislodge their hold on conquered territories, but we will inflict tons of collateral damage on thousands of innocent civilians. Threats like we should “bomb them back to the Stone Age” from Texas Senator and probable Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz sound funny to them. After all, they are dominating an area filed with people who hate them, are terrified by them but have been cowed into submission by mass killings and volume beheadings. Bombing the Islamic State into the “Stone Age” – easily accomplished with a nuke or two – might eliminate IS but it would take untold innocents along the way… much like curing cancer by cremating the patient.
Without the ability to discriminate between civilians and IS military, absent taking and holding the conquered lands themselves and without the ability to capture and punish the fighters themselves for their atrocities, to IS, we’re just ultra-angry bombing fools without the guts to come down and “fight like a man.” We are also unlikely to extinguish this vile flame from 30,000 feet above the fray.
So it’s going to take somebody’s boots, and a lot of them, on the ground. And some of that ground is in Syria, although Syrian authorities hardly control these target areas. There are somewhere between 10-12,000 IS soldiers. Imagine how WWII would have gone had we shelled and bombed the Normandy beaches for months… and then withdrawn without landing troops. “We showed those Nazis who’s boss!” Yeah, right! Boots on the ground? But whose?
Vice President Joe Biden’s recent speech about pursuing them to the “gates of Hell” suggests a more militant stance from the Obama administration, assuming that they have remotely come up with a plan that has a shot of working. As the President meets with NATO allies to set a course of action, as UK PM David Cameron rattles a few sabers, the ultimate decision – if there is to be an effective response – is how to contain and crush IS.
Since crushing the Islamic State cannot be done without boots on the ground – absent a willingness to kill everyone in the area regardless of guilt or innocence – sooner or later the gathering opposition is going to have to face that decision. Perhaps they can convince Iraqi troops (yeah, they’ve effective!), Kurds (not enough of them), maybe the West can make a deal with the devil (Iran and Syria have strong reasons to kill the Islamic State), or maybe there can be a highly diluted international force – perhaps even under the aegis of the United Nations – that can mount the assault. Even anti-interventionist GOP candidates are moving towards greater action, even knowing that they are responding to IS’ provocation as IS desires. Democrats are waiting for their President to act.
The Islamic State will not “negotiate” a peace treaty; they are high on their global jihad. Despite occasional successful local counters in smaller areas, IS needs a huge crushing blow to decimate its ranks, eliminate its leaders and restore balance to their conquered lands. We wasted our credibility on the false war in Iraq and the ineffective war in Afghanistan. We even fomented some of the turmoil we see today as a result. Now, when there is genocide and brutality afoot, we are loathe fighting the one we may need to fight to be effective.
And in everyone’s mind is what happens if we don’t. Does IS bring a 9/11 attack (or bigger) here to us in the States? Of all the presidential decisions face by Barack Obama, this may be the most difficult… and the most important. But given the unanimity of global condemnation, there is no reason for us to go it alone! What would you advise?
I’m Peter Dekom, and this is a brutal situation with a brutal decision waiting to be made.
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