Several readers push back against this post on the escalating US involvement in Iraq:
I watched that Daily Show interview, and I came away with the sense that Samantha Power basically won the exchange, and that Jon Stewart came off as obsessed with how the media has framed ISIS, rather than how the US government has seen the threat and dealt with it. The point that you think was Stewart’s strongest – that the rhetoric of ISIS being some sort of comic-book super villain who threatens our very existence is overblown – is simply beside the point in the real world. Power agreed with that point but also pointed out that ISIS still represents a real regional threat and a level of terrorist organization and military capacity we haven’t had to deal with before. Stewart agree with that, which basically makes his existential point moot.
It’s not as if the US can only fight “existential threats”. We can also fight significant regional threats, to keep them from every getting to that existential level.
It doesn’t matter if they never would anyway; they are still something that needs to be dealt with. And the lack of any ability of the regional powers to get their act together on their own to deal with ISIS is itself a strong argument for our involvement. The question left hanging as to why they can’t get their act together is of course important, but it’s also hard for a diplomat to honestly answer in public without offending the very people we are trying to get to work together. Power made oblique mentions of the sectarian issues involved, and that’s probably enough to point to the answers there. But the mere existence of those problem is itself a compelling reason for US involvement. Without us, for whatever embarrassing reasons, the regional powers wouldn’t get together to effectively fight and contain ISIS. So that in itself answers the question of why we need to get involved.
So, Stewart lost, and the fact that you think he won tells us all we need to know about why your view is losing this argument in general, on both sides of the aisle in Congress and in the Obama administration. You and Stewart are focused on vague “existentialist” arguments that the actual policy-makers are not terribly concerned about. Though one can always find a scary hyped quote from Butters to make fun of, it’s not how the actual policy is coming about.
Another reader:
I love the blog, love what you’re doing, loyal subscriber. But dude, you are overreacting on the ISIS front. You dropped the ball on the Iraq invasion and so did I, but you’re missing it here as well.
1) Was ISIS capable of taking Saudi Arabia, that’s the defining question. There’s almost certainly a strong 5th column for ISIS in the KSA, you’ve got long, desert borders, a Saudi military with no real combat experience, and ISIS would only have to take Mecca.
2) What would be the fallout from an ISIS take over in Saudi Arabia? Would the world’s economy be better off? Would Iran be more or less likely to create a nuclear weapon? How about our security when a major oil producer is an overt sponsor of terrorism?
3) If the threat is real, and serious, then how best to handle it? First, you want to use the minimal necessary force to contain the threat. In a crisis the first thing to do is stop it getting worse, right? Do you go storming in guns blazing? Well, sure, you could, but then you’re just reinforcing the passivity, the weakness of most local forces. You’ve taken on the responsibility and deprived the locals of same. How is that a good idea?
4) But you still want ISIS contained. So you do the minimum necessary: air power and a trickle of arms. You don’t take over, you just make sure your side doesn’t quite lose. Everything else is on the backs of the locals, so they are forced to step up, to mature.
5) ISIS is in a geographical box. The Kobani failure destroys their aura of invincibility. Contain, degrade, leave them to be nibbled to death by Kurds, Iraqis, Jordanians.
I think Obama’s got this. I think he’s right and you should re-examine your assumptions.
One more:
As will likely be pointed out by others, the great hole in your argument about the current US involvement in Iraq is this: “the decision to re-start the Iraq War last August.” Because as you correctly pointed out, the US invaded Iraq in response to 9-11 – despite the two having no connection at all – created the Sunni insurgency, and destroyed our moral authority by embracing torture.
But the US isn’t “re-starting” anything. We’re not invading a country under false pretenses. We are not creating a new insurgency. We are not operating prisons in Iraq (much less sites of torture). Instead, before last August, there was already a war going on – a Sunni jihadist war with Bathist/Alawite Syria, Shiite Iraq, and Sunni Kurdistan. Obama is not starting this war; he’s helping out two of the sides, Sunni Kurdistan and Shiite Iraq. If Obama had done nothing, the war would still be going on.
And from a strictly selfish perspective, over 6500 Americans have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. But not one has died during this current war – because the US isn’t doing any fighting on the ground, and is not an occupying power.
But hey, Obama restarted the Iraq War. It’s exactly the same as what Bush did. That is a convenient thing to argue for someone immensely frustrated with the region, but it isn’t very true. Just like conflating it with Vietnam. Really? But I guess we should just abandon the Kurds and let jihadist roam free, because of what Bush did and what you supported in 2003.
The Dish 