ISIS, having spawned from the miasma of the worst military, political blunder in history that was the US invasion of Iraq has achieved a global notoriety more detestable, diabolical than Nazi Germany having demonstrated a barbaric ruthlessness that should give everyone pause to the fate that awaits us all as the ultimate objective of their genocidal aims. One of the most fundamental, important lessons ISIS has learned from the victorious battles of Islam versus the West within the confines of the Crusades, is the secret to its war strategy against the West. Historians point to the unmitigated brutality and cruelty of Islam's Jihad for the winning ways of its military forces in being able to extend its reach and influence as far and wide as it did. ISIS's cruelty is not so much a characteristic of its leaders and the manner in which battles its enemies as much as a potent military strategy that emboldens their fighting force and weakens, terrifies its adversaries to achieve the goals they relentlessly pursue until attained.
In the history of military confrontation I have never heard of any military, political leader make the statement that their assumed enemy was impossible to engage in war and emerge victorious. Never. If your very life, your very way of life is in jeopardy or eventually come under siege, your fight to win within the very margins of life and not bray that destroying your enemy is impossible. What utter garbage.
First, the person quoted in this article makes the claim that defeating ISIS can not be done by indirect fire.
I simply do not understand our strategy, assuming we really have one. If our goal is defeating ISIS's ideology and its support of international terrorism this cannot be done by indirect fire, PERIOD!
Then he finishes his military analysis to say even the largest military force by us could not defeat ISIS.
So, we just sit back and invite them to our shores.
The underlying catastrophe that is most troublesome for the West, Th United States is the leadership in the form of President Obama, who espouses similar ideology to the goals and objectives sought by ISIS, and who by lack of any action will usher in what eventually will be the fate of us all at the hands of Islamic State.
1. Carpet bomb Raqqa and Mosul.
2. Repeat.
They could be utterly devastated from the air. But our government dances like a monkey on a stick for the Saudis. The Saudis want a sunni victory over Assad.
The Sunnis love having us fight Shiites for them.
But if we wanted to get real serious, we could bomb their oil production and transport in an afternoon. That would hit the pocketbook hard.
Then we could force Turkey to cut off its clandestine support of ISIS.
But of course, that risks Turks pointing out how much we helped ISIS in the beginning with the Obama nonsense of supporting the “moderate” al qeida Syrian opposition. We gave them money, non lethal aid, and by all appearances, lethal aid through the Benghazi-Turkey-northern Syria ratline.
We are now in a pickle.
Of course western militaries could crush and defeat ISIS if allowed to do so.
But the true danger for the United States and Europe is what you get at by saying we invite them to our shores. Without our insane immigration/refugee/asylum policies, there wouldn’t be much to fear. The best defense against Islam is not stop allowing muslim immigration. If we didn’t let them in, then their ability to hurt us would be greatly diminished.
The Middle East? Which has almost no industry? Which has large percentages of their population without education? It's beyond our power to make beat these guys?
My suggestion: Give it a try.
That is to be explained through the lens of the bizarrely complicated Iraqi political fabric: we have Arab versus Persian, Shi'a versus Sunni, town versus town, clan versus clan, and absolutely none of this breaks down along a simple framework. Their best hope as a nation was to view Iraq as something greater, which was, if I understand it correctly, the view of what has been called the neocon strategy. That is "nation-building", and despite my negative predictions it very nearly succeeded.
But it was made to fail at a critical moment by the 0bama withdrawal, which made terrific domestic press but disastrous foreign results. And we're stuck with the same dilemma of a generation ago: let it be and risk the victory of some truly evil and avowedly enemy actors, or spend unconscionable amounts of money and lives attempting to shape the outcome to something less hazardous. We needn't not be here except for the fumbling and self-aggrandizing of the same administration that is now going to have to make the decision. It isn't very confidence-inspiring.
Ah, but there is a strategy: Appease Iran.
Note that Obama does nothing to arm the Sunni tribes in the west of Iraq, nor the Kurds in the north. These are the only two effective fighting forces facing ISIS. Instead, the Obama administration insists on supporting the Shia-dominated Iraqi regime, which has become a satellite of Teheran.
Further, Jordan cannot sustain their tempo of action because the necessary fuel and ordinance is not forthcoming from the Obama administration. And the most effective air force in the Middle East, the UAE, has left the field due to inadequate support from the US.
With regard to ISIS, the USA is not "leading from behind", but following Iran's lead.
Unfortunately there is no quarter with Islam. It will have to be destroyed.
The reality is that ISIS is doomed, just like the Nazis were doomed, and like the USSR was doomed, etc. etc. The problem is that they can hurt a lot of people before their inevitable fall. That's what we have to prevent. The fact is that the same people on the left who will proclaim to the world that what we should all be doing to be fair and just and to protect the downtrodden are sitting back and letting innocent people - including women and children - get tortured and killed. They will fight for a $2/hour wage increase at McDonald's, but when it comes to stopping the wholesale slaughter of defenseless people, they are cowards.
Not impossible. Not complicated.
Shortly after the formation of the US we declared war and went to war against the “Barbary Pirates”. Not a nation state, as far as I know.
Obama wants a blankcheck authorization? We should go him one better and have a Declaration of War against ISIS, ISIL whatever, and any organization or state that provides them with material support. As CIC he works for Congress and the people.
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I think Napoleon did something worse. Regardless of your hyperbole, the invasion of Iraq failed to produce a viable state. That was probably predictable but at the time, but nonetheless Saddam had to go.
more detestable, diabolical than Nazi Germany
No, ISIS is just more adept at total war than the Nazis were. The Nazis didn't rape (many) Frenchwomen or cut lots of throats, but they didn't have to since the French surrendered. Total war is the only answer to ISIS since those are their rules. Annihilating them means lots of civilian casualties so it won't happen until we actually get dragged into WWIII.
The only way to effectively fight them is to commit something akin to genocide and stay strong enough to repeat as necessary as it will piss off much of the world, whether Islamic or not. Nobody would end up being happy as the carnage would be unimaginable. Screwed either way.
How does James Fallows, or any other US media/religion/political person know WHY a "very large portion of Arab Sunnis" support IS?
I think they have all been waiting for IS since the fall of the Caliph in 1922, that while some of them (or many of them, who knows) find some of the brutality distasteful they at least have the good sense, unlike us, to leave the business of war to their warriors.
+1.
Or, we could have stayed in iraq.