Airstrikes

[kmoose]

But why is the US the default check here?

Because we are the leaders of the Free World. With leadership, comes responsibility.

 

[pkt77242]

Because we are the leaders of the Free World. With leadership, comes responsibility.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

TAC's Daniel McCarthy just published an article titled "Does Liberalism Mean Empire?" It's well worth a full read, but the last part of it is especially applicable to the discussion we've been having here:

Murphy and Richman both point to the ways in which war and empire have made the United States less liberal in practice. War’s illiberal effects are indeed a major part of my argument: war is the opposite of security, and conditions of war—i.e., the absence of security—are dreadful for liberty. The question is what minimizes conditions of war and maximizes conditions of security.

That’s not a question that can be answered in the abstract; it’s one that must be answered in the context of particular times. In the case of 19th-century Europe, a balance of power safeguarded by the British Empire as an “offshore balancer” seems to have done the trick. In the case of 20th-century Europe, a 45-year balance between the United States and a contained USSR kept the peace from the fall of Nazi Germany until the collapse of the Soviet Union. One thing I hope my essay will do is prompt libertarians to think more seriously about historical security conditions and what viable “libertarian” options there may have been in the foreign-policy crises of the past. If there were no viable libertarian options, that’s a problem for libertarianism.

It’s a practical problem being confronted by Rand Paul right now. What liberal or libertarian thinkers can he draw upon for practical foreign-policy advice? There are a few, but most radical libertarians are simply not interested in real-world foreign-policy choices. And once libertarians do engage with reality, they start to seem a lot less libertarian.

Richman compares the hazards of foreign policy to those of domestic economic planning. In the case of the economy, the libertarian alternative is the free market; no planning. In the case of foreign policy, is the libertarian alternative also no policy? How can a state in a world of states—all of which, as libertarians know, have a coercive character—have no foreign policy? It’s true that the less power foreign-policy planners have the less trouble they can get up to. This is something on which libertarians and realists who favor restraint can agree. But realists recognize that this tendency for too much power to lead to abuse must be weighed against the dangers of other states’ power. Libertarians seem to see no danger in that direction at all.

Any people that has ever been invaded might find that perverse—indeed, my libertarian friends are often confounded by how their fellow libertarians in Poland or Ukraine can be so hawkish. But the U.S. is in an exceptionally strong geostrategic position. Invasion is highly impractical, if not impossible. My essay, however, notes that world conditions can have a dangerous influence on the U.S. even without foreign boots on our soil. On the one hand, foreign ideologies exert a certain attraction to Americans; and on the other hand, Americans have historically been rather paranoid about foreign ideological influence. Threats both real and imagined attend insecurity, and both kinds lead to illiberal policies.

Luckily, there are at present only a handful of geostrategic positions around the planet that offer secure bases for power projection and ideological dominance. North America is one of them. The second is the European continent. And the third is East Asia, which of the three is by far the least island-like and defensible.

Preventing a hostile power from dominating Europe and keeping a balance in East Asia is “empire” enough. Beyond that, prosperity and industrial strength, along with our nuclear arsenal, are the keys to our security. This is a historically realistic vision, one that solves the great problems of the past—what to do about Nazi Germany or the USSR—and the otherwise insoluble problems of the present, such as what to do about the Middle East: namely, minimize our exposure to crises that we cannot fix and that do not affect the top-tier distribution of power. Today what is most ethical and what is politically and strategically realistic coincide reasonably well: we should not seek to enlarge our commitments; we should preserve our naval power; we should use diplomacy and economics to advance our interests and contain disruptive powers.

This is not a strategy of hard-heartedness toward the oppressed peoples of the world. A secure and prosperous U.S. is in a position to be an ideological counterweight to any illiberal state or insurgency, and it can act when necessary only because it does not act when not necessary. Morale is as limited as men, money, and materiel, and wasting any of these—on a strategic level, we wasted them all in Iraq, as the present crisis demonstrates—is bad for our prosperity, our security, and everyone else’s as well.

Realism and restraint are the watchwords. If libertarians have a stronger strategic argument, I’m eager to hear it,

I'm not an isolationist. But it seems clear to me that our constant military adventures in the Middle East are weakening us without providing any real benefit, and that doesn't bode well for peace and prosperity in the future.

 

[BobD]

TAC's Daniel McCarthy just published an article titled "Does Liberalism Mean Empire?" It's well worth a full read, but the last part of it is especially applicable to the discussion we've been having here:



I'm not an isolationist. But it seems clear to me that our constant military adventures in the Middle East are weakening us without providing any real benefit, and that doesn't bode well for peace and prosperity in the future.

Where do you see us being weaker because of our involvement in the Middle East?

 

[BGIF]

I have been searching for the list of 40 or 50 or 60 countries supposedly a member of the Anti-Isis or Isil Coalition.



Zeke MillerVerified account
‏@ZekeJMiller
Via @StateDept, a list of countries/partners in the anti-ISIS coalition in some capacity pic.twitter.com/dHldm8gefa


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bx7-wXwIEAAmj6B.png


Albania
Andorra
Montenegro
Estonia
Moldova
The Arab League
...


Sad to see Latvia among the missing.

 

[BGIF]

Here's a breakout of personnel, weapons, ammunition, humanitarian aid, money, etc by country.

Anti-ISIS coalition has mobilized up to 62 nations and groups | National Post






(What is Albania doing with 32,000 artillery shells? Did we leave those there?)

 

[BobD]

Here's a breakout of personnel, weapons, ammunition, humanitarian aid, money, etc by country.

Anti-ISIS coalition has mobilized up to 62 nations and groups | National Post






(What is Albania doing with 32,000 artillery shells? Did we leave those there?)

Albanian artillery??

 

[kmoose]

Albanian artillery??

Michigan Jugs machine...

 

[Cackalacky]

Albanian artillery??

More effective than the Morroccan monkeys we got for the Iraq war.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Where do you see us being weaker because of our involvement in the Middle East?

Because our wealth and power have limits. Wasting resources on military adventures in the Middle East weakens our hegemony, which under-girds the entire world order. We gain nothing and risk much in doing so.

TAC's Philip Jenkins just published an article titled "Saddam's Strategy Against ISIS":

It does not take great powers of prophecy to discern the outcome of the latest U.S. intervention in Syria and Iraq. Soon, ground forces will become more directly involved. Fighting bravely and intelligently, those forces will win many victories, although at a high cost in battle casualties and terrorist outrages. Meanwhile, Islamic State forces only have to stay on the defensive until the patience of the U.S. public becomes exhausted, prompting another undignified American withdrawal in 2016 or 2020. Islamists will then regain power, just as the Taliban will almost certainly do in Afghanistan. Americans will be left scratching their heads seeking to explain another strategic failure.

Actually, American or other Western forces could win such wars very easily, obliterating their enemies to the point where they would never rise again. The problem is that they could do so only by adopting tactics that Americans would find utterly inconceivable and intolerable—in effect, the tactics of Saddam Hussein. Yet without these methods, the West is assuredly destined to lose each and every of its future military encounters in the region. I emphatically do not advocate these brutal methods. Rather, I ask why, if the U.S. does not plan to fight to win, does it become embroiled in these scenarios in the first place?

To illustrate the principles at work, think back to the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi in 2012. Ordinary Libyans were furious at the killing of an American diplomat they respected greatly, and they struck hard at the terror groups involved. With dauntless courage, they stormed the militia bases, evicting many well-armed Islamist fighters. Explaining his fanatical behavior under fire, one of the attackers was quoted as saying “What do I have to fear? I have five brothers!” As in most of the Muslim world, whether in the Middle East, North Africa, or South Asia, people operate from a powerful sense of family or clan loyalty, with an absolute faith that kinsmen will avenge your death or injury. That process of vendetta and escalating violence continues until the family ceases to exist. As a corollary, the guilt of one is the guilt of all. An individual cannot shame himself without harming his wider family.

Through the centuries, that basic fact of collective loyalty and shared responsibility has absolutely shaped the conduct of warfare in the region. It means, for instance, that governments disarmed rivals by taking members of their families as hostages for good behavior. Those hostages were treated decently and honorably, but their fate depended on the continued good conduct of their kinfolk. Governments kept order by deterrence, enforced by the ever-present threat of collective retaliation against the kin-group and the home community of any potential insurgents. As individuals scarcely matter except as components of the organic whole of family and community, nothing prevents avenging the misdeeds of one man on the body of one of his relatives or friends.

Everyone in the region understands the collective principle, which was powerfully in evidence during the Lebanese civil war of the 1980s. If a militia kidnapped one of your kinsmen or friends, you could only save his life if you very quickly grabbed a relative of one of the culprits, and thus began negotiations for a swap. If your kinsman was already dead, then further atrocities could only be pre-empted by swift retaliation against the kidnapper’s family. So you have five brothers? Well, we will track them all down, one by one.

Only slowly did local Beirut fighters realize that the Americans were actually naïve enough not to target the relatives of kidnappers, even when they knew perfectly well who the guilty men were. That insight—the knowledge that you could target those foreigners without risking your brothers or cousins—was what led to the hostage crisis of the Reagan years, which almost brought down the U.S. presidency. The Russians, by the way, enthusiastically played by local rules, retaliating savagely against the brothers and cousins of those who laid hands on one of their own. In consequence, the Russians suffered only one kidnap crisis, before establishing a successful balance of terror.

Once we understand that principle, even the seemingly intractable problem of deterring suicide attacks actually becomes simple. An individual—a Mohammed Atta in New York, a Mohammad Sidique Khan in London—might in his last moments dwell on nothing but the glories awaiting him in Paradise. Why should he hesitate to kill? Matters would be utterly different if he knew that his act would bring ruin to his family and neighbors, to the violent death of all his kinsmen and the extirpation of his bloodline.

A dictatorial regime like Saddam’s had not the slightest problem imposing such a group punishment, and extending it to every woman and child of that family. Western forces have always been far more principled, but even the colonial empires were quite prepared to inflict collective punishments on the towns or villages that produced notorious rebels. When Israeli soldiers today demolish the houses of terrorists’ relatives, they are treading in familiar British footsteps.

Today’s Islamic State pursues an extremist ideology in which there are literally no limits to cruel or outright evil behavior. The only enemy they have to fear is death, and they have been taught to welcome this. Short of introducing some mighty new deterrent factor, conventional military operations against them are wildly unlikely to succeed. Quite the contrary, endemic wars will generate ever more fanatics.

In theory, a recipe does exist for decisively ending the Islamists’ run of victories. Through means of collective and family punishment, which explicitly targets individuals who have done no wrong, governments and armies must introduce a brutal deterrent regime that will even outweigh the massive temptations of martyrdom and an instant road to Paradise.

No U.S. government would ever introduce such a policy, and if it did, it would cease to be anything like a democratic society. The U.S. could only adopt such avowedly terrorist methods following a wrenching national debate about issues of individual and group responsibility, and the targeting of the innocent. Could any U.S. government avowedly take hostages? We would be looking at a fundamental transformation of national character, to something new and hideous. But what other solutions could or would be possible?

Given that U.S. administrations are not going to fight the Islamic State by the only effective means available—and thankfully, they aren’t—why are they engaging in this combat in the first place?

Why start a war when you don’t plan to win it?

And TAC's Daniel Larison just published an article titled "'Moderate' Rebels Protest Us Strikes in Syria":

Many groups belonging to the “moderate” Syrian opposition have denounced U.S. strikes in Syria, especially those that have targeted members of Jabhat al-Nusra, the organization affiliated with Al Qaeda that is on the State Department’s official terrorist list:

On Tuesday, nearly a dozen of the FSA’s most powerful groups signed a declaration denouncing the strikes, demanding they target the Syrian regime, too. In a heated meeting with the Syrian opposition in Istanbul Thursday, U.S. officials demanded an explanation for the statement condemning the American-led coalition, an opposition official said.

“They said ‘friends don’t speak against friends,’ ” said an opposition official with knowledge of the meeting. “We told them, ‘true friendship means coordination.’” The meeting was confirmed by a second opposition official.

It’s not surprising that opposition groups are unhappy with the way that the U.S. is fighting this war so far. After all, their primary adversary is the Syrian government, and so far the U.S. isn’t attacking regime forces. They see the U.S. intervening directly in the civil war after years of not doing so, and they are predictably displeased that the U.S. is targeting other anti-regime groups along with ISIS.

The opposition complaints are revealing. The “moderate” opposition that the U.S. is foolishly arming and training doesn’t have the same priorities as the U.S. in this conflict (and there was never any reason to think that it would). Many groups in the FSA are opposed to and offended by military action against a jihadist group that the U.S. correctly views as a terrorist organization. That ought to be the latest in a series of flashing warning signs that the U.S. has absolutely nothing to gain in backing such “moderates.” Friends might not “speak against” friends, but it’s long past time that we realized that the U.S. doesn’t have friends–or even useful proxies–in the Syrian conflict. It is yet another reason to doubt the wisdom of expanding the ISIS war into Syria, and by extension it is another reason to doubt the wisdom of the intervention in its entirety.

Supporters of expanding the war against ISIS into Syria seem to assume that “moderate” rebels will pursue Washington’s goals, but that isn’t going to happen. Like any proxy group, the “moderate” opposition was always going to pursue its own agenda, and there was never going to be much that the U.S. could do about this, especially when it was so intent on trying to “shape” events. These opposition protests confirm what opponents of arming Syrian rebels have taken for granted from the start: providing arms to rebels isn’t going to gain the U.S. the influence or control that Syria hawks want, and the belief that the U.S. can build up a “moderate” alternative to both the regime and jihadists has always been a fantasy. As these protests remind us, many “moderate” rebels don’t consider Jabhat al-Nusra and similar groups to be their enemy, but they do predictably view the group as their ally against Assad. That underscores just how absurd the preoccupation with identifying “moderate” rebels in a brutal civil war has been from the start. It is a label created to evade the underlying problem with taking the anti-regime side in Syria’s civil war, which is that it puts the U.S. in league with jihadists or the allies of jihadists.

 

[BGIF]

Marine first U.S. military casualty in ISIS campaign - CNN.com

By Chelsea J. Carter, CNN
updated 5:05 AM EDT, Sun October 5, 2014

A Marine lost at sea after bailing out of a MV-22 Osprey when it appeared it might crash in the Persian Gulf is believed to be the first American military casualty in support of U.S. operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Cpl. Jordan L. Spears, 21, was declared dead after search and rescue efforts to locate him were unsuccessful, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said in a statement released Saturday.

 

[Ndaccountant]

GOP Rep: ‘At Least Ten ISIS Fighters Have Been Caught Coming Across The Mexican Border’ « CBS DC

Hope this is in exaggeration

 

[BobD]

GOP Rep: ‘At Least Ten ISIS Fighters Have Been Caught Coming Across The Mexican Border’ « CBS DC

Hope this is in exaggeration

I think it's a bunch of bull.

If ten ISIS fighters have been caught that means 1000 made it.

How come nobody sneaks in from Canada?

 

[Voltaire]

I think it's a bunch of bull.

If ten ISIS fighters have been caught that means 1000 made it.

How come nobody sneaks in from Canada?

I would have to assume it's because of the better cuisine on the way up through Mexico as opposed to coming down through Canada. I'd take tacos, guac, and micheladas over... Canadian bacon and Molson?

 

[zelezo vlk]

I would have to assume it's because of the better cuisine on the way up through Mexico as opposed to coming down through Canada. I'd take tacos, guac, and micheladas over... Canadian bacon and Molson?

Poutine?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

 

[kmoose]

Because our wealth and power have limits. Wasting resources on military adventures in the Middle East weakens our hegemony, which under-girds the entire world order. We gain nothing and risk much in doing so.

Actually, we do gain one thing that seems kind of small, but really isn't. We gain real combat experience amongst our troops. It may seem like "meh", but if you have to play ONE big game, a MUST WIN game; would you rather play it with a bunch of seniors, or a bunch of freshmen?

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Actually, we do gain one thing that seems kind of small, but really isn't. We gain real combat experience amongst our troops. It may seem like "meh", but if you have to play ONE big game, a MUST WIN game; would you rather play it with a bunch of seniors, or a bunch of freshmen?

I doubt that our experiences in the Middle East are even remotely comparable to what a "big game" would look like, either strategically or tactically. And it's doubtful that, in this age of nuclear deterrence, that a "must win game" would involve conventional military forces at all. Lastly, even if you're correct, how can we justify the tremendous costs involved-- both in treasure and blood-- for a glorified scrimmage?

 

[enrico514]

GOP Rep: ‘At Least Ten ISIS Fighters Have Been Caught Coming Across The Mexican Border’ « CBS DC

Hope this is in exaggeration

Fear porn at its best!

 

[kmoose]

I doubt that our experiences in the Middle East are even remotely comparable to what a "big game" would look like, either strategically or tactically.

Any time someone is shooting back at you, the game is big.

And it's doubtful that, in this age of nuclear deterrence, that a "must win game" would involve conventional military forces at all.

And yet, in a must win game with ISIL, no one is nuking anyone. That game will be played with non-nuclear forces.

Lastly, even if you're correct, how can we justify the tremendous costs involved-- both in treasure and blood-- for a glorified scrimmage?

Now that's a debate that should be had. But consider this, when looking at the financial costs... When people say that it is costing us a million dollars a day; are they including in that cost, the salaries of all of the servicemen who are over there? Because it's not like we stop paying them if we bring them home. The same with the fuel for the aircraft and armor and other vehicles. If not burning it up over there, they would be burning some up over here, in training. I'm not saying that justifies being over there, but it is part of the debate that people should be honest about.

 

[BGIF]

GOP Rep: ‘At Least Ten ISIS Fighters Have Been Caught Coming Across The Mexican Border’ « CBS DC

Hope this is in exaggeration

Assistant Secretary of HLS said this evening on the news that they have no intel to corroborate that.

I though he was probably being truthful as the intel agencies/governmental agencies seem to have been woefully short of info on the junior varsity for some time.

 

[irish1958]

The Middle East has been a clusterfvck for 15,000 years and we are not going to solve it. We bombed the Serbs because of Kosovo, to save the Muslims there and the BBC reported today that they are "flocking to Seria and Iraq to fight with Isis." We have pledged to support Turkey and even to go to war to defend their country and the BBC reports today that they will not allow the Turkish Kerds to support those in Seria and even have used armed force against them to prevent form helping them fight Isis, whom they are supporting by buying the oil Isis have stolen from Iraq. "Moderate" rebels in Seria are pissed off against us because we are opposing Isis.
Whiskeyjack is 100% correct about this.
Iran doesn't want Isis either but they are standing by hoping we will do their dirty work again in Iraq.
Our only real friend in the Middle East is Isreal and half of Congress is willing to abandon them to placate the reactionary Muslims.
We can't solve the Middle East. Stay out.

 

[BobD]

Any time someone is shooting back at you, the game is big.



And yet, in a must win game with ISIL, no one is nuking anyone. That game will be played with non-nuclear forces.



Now that's a debate that should be had. But consider this, when looking at the financial costs... When people say that it is costing us a million dollars a day; are they including in that cost, the salaries of all of the servicemen who are over there? Because it's not like we stop paying them if we bring them home. The same with the fuel for the aircraft and armor and other vehicles. If not burning it up over there, they would be burning some up over here, in training. I'm not saying that justifies being over there, but it is part of the debate that people should be honest about.

We had days scheduled each year to go fire all of our units ordnance we didn't use on missions or in training. The way our government has it set up is if you don't use all of your supplies....you get less next year.

 

[Cackalacky]

Assistant Secretary of HLS said this evening on the news that they have no intel to corroborate that.

I though he was probably being truthful as the intel agencies/governmental agencies seem to have been woefully short of info on the junior varsity for some time.

I truly believe our federal government is junior varsity on foreign policy, particularly middle east.

 

[BGIF]

I truly believe our federal government is junior varsity on foreign policy, particularly middle east.

Well played.

Unfortunately I don't know if we ever got to varsity status. Perhaps with Franklin in France and Adams securing financing from Holland. Since then ...

Revolutionary and 1812 excursions into Canada. We bungled Pearl Harbor. At Potsdam Truman wasn't aware of Stalin's long term plans and we gave away the store setting up the Cold War. Clueless on Chinese Intervention in Korea leading to Chosin Reservoir disaster. 1958's "Ugly American" followed by "Sarkhan" and "A Nation of Sheep" did justice to our ineptness overseas. Our attempts at democratizing the Middle East, African, S.E. Asia, were all abysmal. Cuba, South America, Iran, Somalia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, ...

We did kick ass in Grenada.

 

[Cackalacky]

Well played.

Unfortunately I don't know if we ever got to varsity status. Perhaps with Franklin in France and Adams securing financing from Holland. Since then ...

Revolutionary and 1812 excursions into Canada. We bungled Pearl Harbor. At Potsdam Truman wasn't aware of Stalin's long term plans and we gave away the store setting up the Cold War. Clueless on Chinese Intervention in Korea leading to Chosin Reservoir disaster. 1958's "Ugly American" followed by "Sarkhan" and "A Nation of Sheep" did justice to our ineptness overseas. Our attempts at democratizing the Middle East, African, S.E. Asia, were all abysmal. Cuba, South America, Iran, Somalia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, ...

We did kick ass in Grenada.

Could not agree more. It seems to me that even as late as FDRs administration we were much more isolationist (for the most part) until we had to act against Japan and decided to help Europe as Brittain was on its knees. The a cold war changed so much.

And yes Grenada was epic.

 

[BGIF]

...

And yes Grenada was epic.

It was the intel!

We had med students on the inside taking the pulse of the island.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

TAC's Scott McConnell just published an article titled "The Middle East Doesn't Matter":

The ISIS rampage through Iraq and much of Syria, roiling Washington and other world capitals, gives rise to an interesting question: Who would win a contest to be named America’s most worthless Mideast ally? Competition is fierce, but three countries are clear frontrunners.

There is Saudi Arabia, whose princely emissaries to Washington have been confidants of presidents and fixtures on the Georgetown party circuit, a country whose rulers and princes possess seemingly unlimited amounts of discretionary income. They have used this wealth to subsidize worldwide the teaching of the most extremist and intolerant variants of Islam, but also to prop up the US defense industry by buying at every opportunity the most elaborate weapons systems we would sell them. It isn’t yet known whether Saudi pilots can actually effectively fly these advanced fighter aircraft under combat conditions. (There is sufficient evidence however that even relatively untrained Saudis can learn to steer a fully loaded 747 into a fixed ground target.)

What do the Saudis do with their shiny F-16′s and spanking new tanks? One might have hoped to see Saudi forces in action against ISIS—which really hasn’t had any success against a military formation that has been systematically trained and adequately armed. But this isn’t happening, probably because Saudi leaders realize that a great many Saudis (a majority?) actually agree with the ISIS ideology, and there is no guarantee they wouldn’t defect to ISIS if called upon to battle it. Among the best few sentences written since the onset of the crisis comes from veteran observer William Pfaff, who pointed to the stakes:

Moreover, is it fully appreciated in Washington that the “New Caliphate” has every intention of taking over the existing role in Islamic society of Saudi Arabia? It wants to conquer and occupy Mecca. If it succeeds, the Saudis themselves will be submitted to the ferocious discipline the ISIS practices. The Saudi ladies who now complain that they are not allowed to drive cars will find themselves in a new world indeed!

Then there is Turkey, an actual NATO member, a Muslim majority country which bridges Asia and Europe, a country with a considerable middle class and millions of educated and highly trained citizens. There are smart people in Washington and beyond who have held great hopes for Turkey: that it might solve the seemingly intractable riddle of how to combine Islam with modern democracy; that it might provide meaningful diplomatic support to the Palestinians; that it could both restrain America from disastrous blunders (as it tried to do in Iraq) and exert its growing influence on behalf of social and scientific progress in the region as a whole.

I shared those hopes, but have to admit they now seem pretty naive. Faced with an aggressive extremist Sunni movement beheading people on its borders, Turkey’s leaders choose to focus on the alleged dangers posed by its own long-restive Kurdish minority, while remaining obsessed with the Alawite (i.e. not Sunni Muslim) regime in neighboring Syria. Turkey has allowed ISIS to be replenished by allowing its own territory to be used as a transit zone for jihadist volunteers. If, as seems plausible at this writing, the Syrian-Kurdish town of Kobani falls while Turkey’s powerful NATO-armed military observes placidly from just over the border, it will be a long time before anyone in Washington will be able to say “our ally Turkey” with a straight face again.

Then there is Israel, usually touted as the best of American friends in the Mideast, if not the best ally any nation has been blessed to have, ever. Recipient of nearly as much American foreign and military aid as the rest of the world combined, Israel, with its crack air force and large stockpile of nuclear weapons, stands unchallenged as the region’s dominant military power. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu shows up on American news talk shows more than leaders of the rest of the world combined; were it not for John McCain, he would surely log more “Face the Nation” time than any American politician.

Once again, events illustrate what utility Israel has as a regional ally when the crunch comes. Faced with a unforeseen, rapidly moving, and dramatic crisis, Americans watch as Israel does absolutely nothing except antagonize the Muslim world further by announcing new land seizures so more illegal settlements can be built in Jerusalem. Of course this isn’t without precedent; Israel was of no help in the first Iraq crisis, and of course no help in the second—beyond providing a parade of prime-time cheerleaders to encourage George W. Bush in his lurch into war. Indeed, almost by definition Israel is no help in any regional crisis. The Israeli military may well remain formidable, though it is hard to be sure, as its most recent campaigns have been conducted against essentially undefended civilian populations.

What distinguishes Israel from Turkey and Saudi Arabia, is that no one is particularly surprised that it gives no help; it is not expected to do so. Congress will respond anyway with new resolutions demonstrating to major campaign donors its absolute submissiveness to Tel Aviv; perhaps Israelis will be permitted to travel to the U.S. without visas while Israel doesn’t reciprocate the favor, or the Pentagon’s replenishment of Israeli military stocks, exhausted by Gaza bombardment, will be prioritized.

Might there be a silver lining in all this? As we witness the emergence of a violent new force, simple realism forces upon us the fact that the friends we’ve been wooing for decades just don’t see it that way. They may not like ISIS, but for various reasons they have other fish to fry. That should tell us something about the strategic vision underlying our policies for the past two or three decades. (I would give a passing grade to the American Mideast policies pursued during the heat of the Cold War, when strategists considered keeping oil flowing and the region out of the communist orbit to be a pressing national priority, superseding all other considerations. In this they succeeded.)

What silver lining? It’s rooted in the fact that the Mideast may now actually matter much less than we think it does. We do have the option of pretty much ignoring it, if we choose. Its contribution to the world economy is negligible. Its oil will reach the market one way or another. The security and well-being of the American people is not linked to the survival of a Shi’ite regime in Baghdad, a medieval monarch in Riyadh, or, for that matter, a Jewish state in Jerusalem. Recognition of this fact is only beginning to seep into the discourse: Justin Logan argues persuasively here that virtually nothing that goes on in the Middle East can threaten us very much, that no country in the region is worth starting a war over, and that the amount of money we’ve spent combatting terrorism in the region is wildly disproportionate to the actual threat. (It goes without saying that American bombing, with its inevitable “collateral damage,” will create a growing class of Muslims who have concrete reason to want to harm Americans.) In an recent interview, Francis Fukuyama elaborates on this view. 9/11 didn’t “change everything” as many claimed, or shouldn’t have; it was essentially a lucky shot.

“These are really marginal people who survive in countries where you don’t have strong states … Their ability to take over and run a serious country that can master technology and stay at the forefront of great-power politics is almost zero,” he says. Elsewhere he notes that the crisis over ISIS is really a subset of the Sunni-Shia civil war, and America’s ability to have any lasting impact on that is also almost zero.

This perspective—that the Mideast isn’t actually all that important to American security and we should pay much less attention to it—should now become a critical part of the American conversation. The thinkers cited here—Logan and Fukuyama, and one should add the popular blogger Andrew Sullivan, also writing along these lines—are far from knee-jerk “isolationists.” Fukuyama posits particularly that we should use military offshore balancing to ensure that no single power controls the oil fields; and obviously Iran would not want or allow ISIS to shut off its ability to export oil. But beyond that, we can afford to take the region much less seriously.

Unfortunately, there are no major American politicians now ready to make this argument. Rand Paul, regrettably, seems to have folded into a “me too” ISIS hawk after the first atrocity appeared on television, and the entire debate in Washington is now between neocons who want to send American ground troops now, and Obama establishment figures who hope, against much persuasive evidence, that some combination of bombing and special forces and our “coalition partners” will halt the ISIS advance. This narrowing of our true choices is madness.

There is a third, quite realistic, option: ISIS doesn’t matter all that much, and in any case if our “allies” don’t want to fight it, there’s very little we can do about it. If it one day rules Mecca, more the pity for the Saudi women and their driving aspirations. But the impact on American life will be minimal.

 

[irish1958]

Well said. I don't know what to do about Isreal, however. They are the only democracy in the area,but I don't think it is in our interest for them to fight along with us or otherwise aid our incursions in the area because because of the hate the Muslim have against them. On the other hand if we don't supply them with weapons and the area powers attack them, they will use nuclear weapons to defend themselves. I can't see how that wouldn't be a disaster for us and the rest of the world.
I think we need to withdraw all our forces from the area, drop Turkey from NATO and pledge to use maximum air power against any aggression against Isreal or USA to prevent a nuclear war.

 

[enrico514]

Well said. I don't know what to do about Isreal, however. They are the only democracy in the area,but I don't think it is in our interest for them to fight along with us or otherwise aid our incursions in the area because because of the hate the Muslim have against them. On the other hand if we don't supply them with weapons and the area powers attack them, they will use nuclear weapons to defend themselves. I can't see how that wouldn't be a disaster for us and the rest of the world.
I think we need to withdraw all our forces from the area, drop Turkey from NATO and pledge to use maximum air power against any aggression against Isreal or USA to prevent a nuclear war.

IMHO Turkey will drop NATO first...

But good post by Whiskey. The US has (and has had) much more to lose than to gain from their involvement in the Middle East.