WHAT TO DO ABOUT ISIS
The fact that Iran is willing to collaborate with “The Great Satan” provides a good indication of just how worried they are about ISIS, as are Assad’s Syria (which recently expressed no opposition to U.S. bombing of ISIS in Syria), the Syrian moderate opposition (whoever they may be), Iraq, the Kurds, and, I suspect we could lump in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and much of the rest of the Middle East as well, including, of course, Israel.
So I ask, Why the hell should the U.S. Intervene half a world away in what is essentially an internecine, regional quarrel ongoing within Islam for the better part of 13 centuries?
The knee-jerk response from the U.S. establishment is that our standing as “leader of the free world” depends on the U.S. demonstration of “leadership,” which, in faulting the Obama administration for lacking, the establishment so far has been incapable of defining in practical terms beyond “do something.” For warmongering Republicans, no matter what Obama does, it will never be enough.
The folly of such interventionist “leadership” was clearly demonstrated a century ago when, ostensibly for the sake of honoring its guarantees of Belgian neutrality, Britain, the leading superpower of the day, joined a longstanding internecine quarrel on the European continent, ironically in support of its former arch-enemies, France and Russia and against Queen Victoria’s grandson, Kaiser Willie. In the heyday of empire, the war quickly spread around the globe — notably in the “Bastard’s War” in Mesopotamia, where 10,000 British troops were forced to surrender on the very ground at issue today. All over the assassination of an Austrian royal couple.
Measure World War I’s cost to Britain in lives, wounds, pain, agony, tears, enduring sorrow, disabling “shell shock” and destruction, against the vanity of attempting to preserve, in the words of Foreign Secretary Grey, British “honor, respect, good name and reputation before the world” as preeminent world leader. Not only did World War I literally decimate a generation of British men (12% killed) and make widows and spinsters of a much of the corresponding generation of British women, but it also virtually bankrupted the country and marked the beginning of the end of the British Empire and British standing as a superpower. Clues, don’t you think?
The bitter irony for Britain is Grey’s insistence on war to preserve Britain’s version of honor and place in the international order, achieved neither. (See: Grey’s speech to Commons on the eve of war.) Nor did it accomplish the broader war aims of “making the world safe for democracy,” and to be “a war to end all wars.” Had he Cassandra’s gift of foresight, Grey might have seen the virtue in “[standing] aside with our arms folded, looking on dispassionately, doing nothing,” a course of action the House of Commons loudly rejected on the eve of war.
Our allies in Europe and Asia have long played on U.S. vanity as ”leader of the free world” to inveigle clueless Americans to bear the burden of defending them by maintaining armed forces almost equal in cost to that of the rest of the world combined — certainly many times the military expenditures of any potential enemies. Spending a small fraction of their gross domestic product on armaments, our allies, operating under the umbrella of American protection, have proportionately more productive capacity dedicated to making things people can actually use. How’s that for allies’ strategy? Do little or nothing and “leave it to George.” The trouble is, “George” willingly plays right along with the self-serving designs of our allies inasmuch as American foreign policy is driven by the “undue influence in the councils of government” of the military-industrial complex Eisenhower created and then warned about.
Aside from the common defense, the military-industrial complex’s interests are diametrically opposed to those of the People. Whereas the People want inexpensive goods and services they can consume, low taxes, low debt, and preservation of life, liberty and property, the military-industrial complex takes lives, deprives the People of liberty, causes the destruction of property, pushes up prices and diverts vast resources into goods and services the People can’t consume but must pay for, either by higher taxes or added debt, duly shunted to younger generations. As is so often the case, abstractions like “honor,” “leadership” and ill-defined “interests” as pretexts for war camouflage the self-serving interests of the military-industrial complex bent on profit and self-perpetuation. Accordingly, in their own interests, the people should rightly regard with suspicion appeals by Washington to engage in war in response to such questionable pretexts, let alone outright lies such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the threat of “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq.
Today, the United States faces a critical decision point, not unlike that faced by Britain in August 1914, namely whether to commit troops and/or additional military resources to a foreign quarrel, thereby taking sides in an internecine conflict on another continent in support of its arch enemies (in this case, Iran and Syria, in 1914 it was former enemies, France and Russia) with unforeseeable adverse consequences and cost.
The U.S. military-industrial complex and its handmaidens in Washington have raised such interventions to an art form to satisfy their appetites for profitable Long Wars. They choose battlegrounds in remote locations with forbidding terrain supporting a questionable ally against a tenacious enemy, where tactical success is assured but strategic victory is impossible to define, let alone achieve. In so doing, they violate every principle in the Powell doctrine (especially #5):
Is a vital national security interest threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the American people?
Do we have genuine broad international support?
With the exception of the first Gulf War run by Colin Powell, we’ve been down that path 3 times in the last 50 years, always with the same result: tactical success and strategic defeat in long, drawn-out quagmires serving no purpose beyond the extended care and feeding of the military-industrial complex. Isn’t it time we wised up?
Now we are faced with ISIS, deliberately provoking the U.S. Into bombing them and creating civilian casualties as a recruiting tool for their cause worldwide. Those who advocate unrelenting bombing of Muslims (whether ISIS or civilians) ignore the counterproductive aftereffects of such a policy, namely that it creates more jihadists than it eliminates. One gets an idea of just how effective a recruiting tool the bombing is for jihadists in yesterday’s “The Times” of London in an article headlined “Police stop teen girls heading for jihad,” describing how police stopped 2 Austrian teenage girls (14 and 15!) from joining ISIS in Syria, following in the footsteps of two others who went to Syria in April and haven’t been heard from since. If the message is getting through to teenage girls in Austria, what do you suppose it’s achieving among fighting-age males around the world? In an adjoining “Commentary” in “The Times” Roger Boyes states: “The al-Qaeda worldview has taken root in terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria, Libya, Kenya, Tunisia, Syria and Iraq. There has been a huge expansion of Islamic militancy. For many, this is the direct result of the long US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
So while the West may achieve some immediate gratification from vaporizing some truly barbarous actors, the eventual long-term blowback emerging from the stream of gruesome images of Muslims killed by American bombs will ultimately prove self-defeating if continued, very possibly escalating into a catastrophic global religious war.
The prospect of unspeakable horrors accompanying an irreversibly escalating conflict, like those faced, but generally unforeseen, by Britain 100 years ago, should compel us to consider the strategy derided by Britons on the eve of World War I, to their great regret, namely “to stand aside with our arms folded, looking on dispassionately, doing nothing.”
Were the U.S. to do so, there is every reasonable prospect that the aforementioned Middle Eastern actors opposed to ISIS would be forced to fill the vacuum left by withdrawing Westerners -- in which case the conflict would devolve into an extension of the longstanding contest for supremacy between factions within Islam. Deprived of the rallying cry of jihad against “Western infidels,” and faced with the prospect of simply killing brother Muslims to achieve their aims, ISIS would find its appeal to jihad vastly diminished, dampening their heretofore successful recruiting drive. If Islam is half the religion it says it is, if left to their own devices, the warring factions within Islam should be able to sort things out without Western interference. If it is not, the opposing forces will weaken each other and the West will remain unaffected. Even the West’s concern about the interruption of Middle Eastern oil supplies should be assuaged by the fact that whoever gains possession of that oil will need to sell it to the West.
Military planners go to considerable lengths to create the strategic advantage of “dividing and conquering” their foes. In this case, “divide and conquer” is being served up on a silver platter (“the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.” Sun Tsu) if only the West have the sagacity to adopt Sun Tsu’s timeless dicta contained in “The Art of War”:
“If his forces are united, separate them.”
“Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy's purpose.”
“Thus the expert in battle moves the enemy, and is not moved by him.”
“If we wish to wrest an advantage from the enemy, we must not fix our minds on that alone, but allow for the possibility of the enemy also doing some harm to us, and let this enter as a factor into our calculations.”
“First lay plans which will ensure victory, and then lead your army to battle; if you will not begin with stratagem but rely on brute strength alone, victory will no longer be assured”
“Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
“The wise warrior avoids the battle.”
“Mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy”
“Appear weak when you are strong. . . “
“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.”
“There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare.”
“Who wishes to fight must first count the cost”
Words to live by.
Bombing ISIS is the easy course of action, offering the promise of gratifying tactical victory but the prospect of humiliating and costly strategic defeat. Regrettably, President Obama, against his better instincts, one suspects, has embarked on this path.
A strategic withdrawal from the scene requires far more courage, and wisdom.