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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSo, just so I got this straight...
The right believes Obama is to blame for ISIS because he prematurely pulled out of Iraq and therefore allowed the group to grow in influence...
Some on the left believe Obama is now only further responsible for ISIS because he decided to ... bomb 'em?
I know liberals aren't naive. I know this. I know this because, in 2003, they weren't out there buying Bush's lies. But are we really going to believe that completely ignoring anything dealing with Iraq will suddenly make it a tropical paradise? Didn't we just do that the last few years and didn't the situation disintegrate into a continued cluster fuck? The U.S. hasn't done shit in Iraq since the end of 2011. It's now the summer of 2014 - plenty of time for the tension there, supposedly, to die down. It hasn't. In fact, things are worse today than when the withdrawal happened.
Now, I'm not advocating for a continued presence in the region, but there is a true disconnect between both extremes.
ISIS didn't happen because Obama pulled out of Iraq in 2011. It happened because we invaded in 2003 and now the chickens are coming home to roost. Conversely, though, ISIS isn't just going to go away with no U.S. presence in the country. If that were the case, ISIS would have never formed in the first place.
So, it's disingenuous to suggest that the only way this will work out well is if we just let ISIS do their thing in a region that is crumbling - no matter how many people are killed in the process. We can't just say, "let Iraq work it out ... it's not our problem."
Yeah, guys, it kinda is our problem. It's our problem because the direct result of what has happened today is tied to Bush's inept failures. But it's pretty clear ISIS isn't just going to slink away and become some peace loving group if the United States pulls even further back from the region and I say that with certainly because there is no evidence that was happening prior to the collapse.
Bush put Obama in the worst possible place and now he's doing what he can without sending us to war. You can ignore the crisis going on there, but as it is with Syria, it doesn't change the fact the crisis is still happening. The difference, of course, between the U.S. and Syria and even Israel and Palestine, is that while the U.S. may have indirectly influenced the issues in these areas, they are not as responsible for 'em as the Iraqi mess. What is happening in Iraq is absolutely the fault of our government and that, whether you supported the war or not, does kind of beholden us to their cause ... as fucked up as it sounds.
Now, you can debate all you want about how best to handle the situation, but it's clear doing nothing isn't working. If it was, well, then, we wouldn't be in the spot now would we?
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bowens43
(16,064 posts)why do you think it's our responsibility to make it a tropical paradise? Not our business. Not our crisis.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)We are at fault here. We are responsible. We owe it to do something because we directly caused this issue. I can't just walk into your house, break all your shit and then not face any responsibility for it.
GeorgeGist
(25,318 posts)not allowed to break more shit.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Besides which, we and our allies continue to have vital interests in the region.
-Laelth
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Read DU.
rug
(82,333 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Unless we go in there and completely level the country. Hell, even World War II created a long-term problem in the name of the Soviet Union. Just sitting back and letting Iraq collapse into a catastrophic mess is going to create just as many long-term problems, if not more, for the U.S. and the region than potentially nipping this in the bud without brute force.
rug
(82,333 posts)Whether those effects are problems depends on whether the long term effects have been thought through.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)And it's not one that I believe can be solved by just ignoring it. But it's not Obama's fault. Unfortunately, it is his problem.
rug
(82,333 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)The short-term strategy is clear: stop ISIS before it overtakes the entire region and becomes a far bigger issue 10 to 15 years down the line than it is currently. The fact is, Obama is pretty much in a lose-lose situation thanks to Bush. He does nothing and Iraq totally collapses into a heap, with ISIS becoming a modern day Taliban, and it's going to be a thorn in the region for years to come. But even his actions right now aren't dramatic enough to really change the dynamics in the region - but maybe good enough to stop the crisis currently.
Really, beyond turning the Middle East into a parking lot, every option is probably going to hurt us down the line.
rug
(82,333 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Not with a group that's taking grip like ISIS. If this was a marginal issue, I could agree - but it seems far more extensive than it was even a month ago. It reminds me of an unchecked wildfire. Sooner or later, it's going to burn everything. :/
rug
(82,333 posts)For one thing, ISIS did not come out of nowhere, contrary to appearances.
Getting to the root of that is essential to determine both what is in fact going on and what to do next.
For another thing, what is the long term goal of ISIS? Talk of a Caliphate aside, which is audacious in its impracticality, they don't appear to have either the means or the ideology to cement there recent gains.
The answer to this question is likely found in the answer to the first question.
When encountering a Tasmanian devil, the first response should not be to call Elmer Fudd with his shotgun.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)ISIS is more than just a nuisance here. They might've not just come out of nowhere, but the damage they're doing is far more extreme than it was even a couple months ago. I see no reason to believe it'll get better by just ignoring it and doing nothing. You say they don't have the means or ideology to cement their recent gains - I say I'd rather not test that theory out.
rug
(82,333 posts)While this action is couched in humanitarian terms, it remains a military action. Military force should be used when there is a defined goal and a strategy to achieve that goal. This decision looks like a no-brainer but the long term rationale behind it has not been articulated.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)But it goes back to the original point: Obama really doesn't have many options here. He does something or ignores it - neither are all that great of options.
rug
(82,333 posts)But the silence is troubling. Every war ever started was ostensibly to rescue someone.
YvonneCa
(10,117 posts)...to support democratically formed governmentS in the region POLITICALLY to solve their own regional problems with extremists. Whether it is Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine or Syria...the use of our military is only in support of countries' own efforts and for humanitarian purposes. It is the opposite of GWBs 'pre-emptive war' policy...to the frustration, I am sure, of McCain and Co. 
What the heck do people think John Kerry and Joe Biden have been out there doing?
The fact that this policy is not out there and well understood is lack of media coverage of it and their failure to adequately explain it to a somewhat unengaged American populace. JMHO.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)The long term plan is for the Iraqis to form a more inclusive government (that includes Sunni rrepresentation) that can stand against radicalism like IS.
rug
(82,333 posts)Where has the rationale for the current action been articulated?
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)And true, that was the long term goal before IS and it has not changed on the US' part. But with IS, it's getting real to those that are blocking the formation of such a government.
rug
(82,333 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Since ... well ... since he's he announced the withdrawal.
rug
(82,333 posts)"We will do whatever is needed to protect our people."
I get the sense this is an ad hoc action. He makes a compelling humanitarian case but these steps don't appear to be intended as a decisive blow to ISIS. I suppose there are other plans in the works.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)The big problem with WWII was the war itself: many millions killed. I'm not saying a war of such unbelievable destruction is a good thing, but it's normally the only kind of war that ends in peace.
Lobbing a few bombs doesn't do much.
rug
(82,333 posts)Lobbing a few bombs will only result in severed limbs and a few scattered bodies. No biggie.
Chathamization
(1,638 posts)(...eh, well maybe just a couple, small problems...)
(...but maybe we can bomb Libya just one more time to get it right?)
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Maedhros
(10,007 posts)
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)
NY Times: "Obama Warns of ‘Long-Term’ Iraq Strikes" (And we're off to the races!)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025359987
Meanwhile, we can't even get a transportation bill in this country without "pension smoothing." We have billions for war, but can't get the basics done in this country without stealing from ordinary Americans.
It's a criminal racket.
YvonneCa
(10,117 posts)...people will watch on CSpan what he actually said.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)New York Times:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025359987
WASHINGTON — Laying the groundwork for an extended airstrike campaign against Sunni militants in Iraq, President Obama said Saturday that the strikes that began the day before could continue for months as the Iraqis build a new government.
“I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks,” Mr. Obama told reporters before leaving for a two-week vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. “This is going to be a long-term project.”
YvonneCa
(10,117 posts)...matters.
madamesilverspurs
(15,800 posts)There’s something kind of sick about the bombs aimed at ISIS being delivered from the deck of an aircraft carrier named for the US president who launched the first Gulf war in no small part to protect his own investments in the area; add a huge dollop of irony that it was his son who created the vacuum that ISIS came to fill. The irony itself likely brings a chuckle to the father, while his son is probably too wasted on Jim Beam and turpentine fumes to notice.
Journeyman
(15,031 posts)"The future is not long," said the dweeby little PR hack for the Afghani Taliban in 2001, "the future is not long for those who wait for it."
Why should our abandoning that clusterph@ck three years ago remove it from our concerns or free us from the consequences of the engine we set in motion?
Duppers
(28,117 posts)
babylonsister
(171,054 posts)I don't want to overthink anything. Our President did the right thing by trying to help thwart a possible genocide. Love him or hate him, or many of us for agreeing, but that was the right thing to do.
Andy823
(11,495 posts)snooper2
(30,151 posts)stupid connects-
HOW many times do I have to explain this 
The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)We have here people, who present themselves, anyway, as considerably to the left of me, maintaining in all apparent seriousness President Obama's administration has created I.S.I.L., has fostered, financed and armed it, with opinion divided on whether it has been deliberately loosed under control against Iraq to give pretext for continuing 'Bush's war', or whether that is because they lost control of their creature ( though in either case, of course, if we had just listened to Vladimir and joined him defending Assad. all would be just peachy... ). And I have no doubt it would take no more than a few minutes to call up similar claims from far-right sources....
There simply is no limit to the depths of madness.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)American-provided arms are being used to destroy American-provided arms. Yeah, there is no depth to the madness.
MADem
(135,425 posts)
quaker bill
(8,224 posts)is not pretty at all. There is no end of things to object to about it. It was perfectly objectionable in the bronze age and has not improved with time. It is unclear whether it is more deadly now than it was then. It is clear that the carnage and destruction is faster and more efficient now, but in the past they were perfectly willing to take the time to complete the task.
We cannot pick a "good guy", because at depth there really isn't one. There may be a side which is somewhat less adverse, but that is as far as it goes.
Saddam was effective and in control because whenever something like ISIS began to form, he gassed them or rounded up the leaders and their families for torture and summary execution. It was feudalism with one large and overpowering ruler. Now we have feudalism with smaller and underpowered leaders vying for control. Once one group gets large enough to overpower the rest, things will get more quiet again, not necessarily in a good way, but more quiet.
There is no conspiracy, things are just the way they have been for centuries, except that who the next powerful dictator (feudal lord) will be has not been sorted out yet. We appear to have a preference.
TheKentuckian
(25,023 posts)I'd also for my part quibble with the "create" section, the seeds were already in the ground but yes better Assad than these monsters (just as it was better Hussein than anything since) we were just and in some quarters are pretending are "moderate" whatever that means anymore in any situation.
There is no way that toppling Assad would increase regional stability and I honestly believe it was just not a consideration in what our people stupidly saw as a separate situation. We were and still apparently are all about separating Russia from control of that seaport and these idiots thought they could play on one side of the imaginary line and it wouldn't even relate to the other side. It is pretty much that or a willful machinations to continue neocon agenda in the area.
What the hell is the alternative outcome here? How much worse would matters be now if Assad had fallen, the fucking jihad would REALLY be balling out of control.
No shit we fostered these jackals and at minimum took pressure off a front in their confederacy's wider war. I see no basis to deny it, it is what it is, the divisions we trick ourselves into don't exist in these folk's minds except as something to be erased.
There is no path to peachy and not many (none of that we are willing to take for a number of reasons anyway) to even contained, I'm not the one who can't remember that.
The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)That is a claim the I.S.I.L. are a deliberate creation of the President Obama's administration. They press this as leftists, or least while presenting themselves as leftists. I expect it is also something that could readily be found emanating from the most virulent right-wing quarters.
I consider the claim to be poison swill.
politicman
(710 posts)I call bullcrap on your comment.
If the U.S had of helped get rid of Assad right after the uprising began, then the moderate elements in Syrian Rebels would have been the dominant force their.
Exactly because Assad was allowed to indiscriminately bombard and slaughter Sunni's all over the country without any intervention from the West, many many moderate Sunni's started to radicalise thus the reason why extremists in Syria overtook the moderate forces in strength.
Also, Iraq has a majority Shia population and they were helped to power by Bush's disastrous 2003 invasion.
In Syria, you have a majority Sunni population who is oppressed by a minority Shia (Alawi) dictator.
So naturally when Sunni's in the region and around the world see America using force to give the Shia majority power in Iraq WHILST deciding to not use power to give the Sunni majority power in Syria, they start to think the West is taking sides in the Sunni/Shia religious war thus they radicalise and ISIS and Nusra are borne and grow.
Bush's war in 2003 should never have happened and it created the problems we have now, but one way to solve the problem was to restore the balance of power in that region, namely if the U.S was responsible for the Sunni losing power in Iraq due to being a minority, then the U.S should have also should have followed through by helping to restore Sunni power in Syria due to them being in the majority there. Obama should have restored the balance of power as a way to fix Bush's colossal mistake.
TheKentuckian
(25,023 posts)You and no one else knows who that is or indeed what moderate means and your "restore balance" by toppling Assad and making it a Sunni state is dangerously crazy. I suppose unleashing unchecked radicalism in Libya is all part of the balancing act as well?
Why is all the "balancing" done on the most secular leaning states? I swear some folks are dedicated to willfully melting the entire region, is everyone an end times kook trying to speed up Armageddon?
politicman
(710 posts)You need to understand the dynamics of the religion and region.
Sunni and Shia have been at each others throats for a very long time now and no side has one iota of trust in the other.
By taking out the regime of Saddam who was Sunni and letting the majority in Iraq gain power, the U.S created one massive Shia crescent spanning from Iran, to Iraq, to Syria and Lebanon.
The Sunni in that region were never going to accept that Shia crescent, thus when the rebellion started in Syria, that was the best time to help restore the balance of power in that area.
Obviously it would have been best if Bush never invaded Iraq and changed the dynamic, but once the cat was let out of the bag, the next best move would have been to help the Sunni majority in Syria gain power as a balance to Iraq.
You can argue all day long that there are no moderate Sunni's in Syria or elsewhere, but the truth is that the Sunni's were always going to fight to break up the Shia crescent I described above.
There are plenty of moderate Sunni's in that region, but if the choice is to fall under the rule of Shia governments or extremist groups, the Sunni will choose the extremists any day of the week because of the history between the 2 sects.
ISIS and Nusra would never have had the success they did if the moderate Sunni communities didn't support them, and the reason they support them is because they see them as they only alternative to the Shia crescent.
By toppling Assad and restoring the balance of power in that region, as well as giving the Sunni's the same benefit of majority rule as the U.S gave the Shia in Iraq, these extremist groups would never have had the atmosphere for them to flourish.
LordGlenconner
(1,348 posts)But nary a solution to be found anywhere from that crowd. I detest criticism without ideas for solutions behind the criticism. Ideas beyond "let's just have peace", as a four year old might say.
That said, I do enjoy watching them pound sand. The efforts to one up each other with hyperbole and drama are quite entertaining, and maybe a little pathetic.
Brave Internet warriors every one of them.
I'd also like to add this: these same people, had they been alive in the early 40's, would have been calling FDR a murderer too.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)I think McCain is responsible for Isis.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if he didn't get them some sponsors.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)I'm telling you, they got some supplies and funding and political backing as a result of his schmoozing up to them.
McCain has blood on his hands.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Not any 'friend' of official Iraq Gov, (or the USA) that's for sure. Unless some big war 'for profit' contractor Corp. plays both sides of the fence to make MORE mega-profits.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)And since then he's become a major "job creator".
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)must have not been enough free boots for all of them.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,342 posts)are a growing wolf.
Thanks for the thread, Drunken Irishman.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)ancianita
(36,017 posts)very real notions about why nothing works. Those reasons strike to the heart of what humans want.
Things work or nothing works for various players and bystanders' interests, and I'm interested to know what we're working for there and what others are working for there. Violence works, as both capitalists and believers know who use it.
We can reinterpret their actions, misinterpret or totally believe their own narratives about why they use violence, but we can't turn away or move on. Our politics and foreign policy aren't working. There is no statesman to end this. Something feels inexorable about it all.
barbtries
(28,787 posts)i want to know something. who arms ISIS?
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)Bombing from the air is war.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)If I had written it I would have said "putting boots on the ground" as it would have been more accurate.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)created the milieu for this to happen.
I don't support the Tea Party on social issues but at least the libertarian wing is against the foreign interventions that cause these unintended consequences. I don't see a similar movement on the left.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)They are going to say he's too far right, he's lied, etc., etc., etc. There is a group of semi-professionals screamers on the left on DU who would rather fall on a sword then admit Obama did anything right.
rug
(82,333 posts)davidpdx
(22,000 posts)That's what I was referring to.
Multichromatic
(14 posts)It's not like this war monger will go to prison for colluding with Bandar Bush to fund ISIS "freedom fighters" though.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/john-mccain-syrian-rebels-92022.html#ixzz35ODZLRSZ
http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2014/06/could-john-mccain-be-responsible-next-911
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraq-syria-bandar/373181/
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)I think that sums up DU for the past week.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Since yesterday.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)FSogol
(45,470 posts)
Iggo
(47,547 posts)Sorry. I'm allergic.
SummerSnow
(12,608 posts)ISIS would be created due to our invasion, not leaving. Rethugs are foolish. They know why ISIS is here.