Should We Fight ISIS? (4)
In the very first post in this series I asked how can ISIS challenge the mighty west?
And the answer is that they really cannot so long as we are willing to resist and fight them. However, if we are not willing, who will oppose them? Surely not the very inward-looking western Europeans, who have been hollowing out their armed forces for decades. (See here and here)They are already being probed by ISIS with terrorist attacks, which might spur the Europeans to action, but it may take them a decade to rearm themselves to do much outside of their own borders, Then again, they have huge economic problems to distract them from the external threat. Europe looks like a rather weak reed to depend upon.
Other muslim states might be better possibilities as opponents of ISIS. Certainly, this seems to be the hope of the Obama administration. (See here and here and here.) Two of these Arab states, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, appear to have strong motivations for fighting ISIS as they are particularly threatened. Unfortunately for Obama and the United States, Obama has alienated Sunni regimes with his tunnel vision on obtaining a nuclear deal with Iran, and by providing precious little help in fighting jihadists in places like Yemen. Arabs seem to have little appetite left for working cooperatively with the United States.
In fact, Obama has alienated a large swath of U.S. allies to the point they want no part in cooperating with the U.S. Some Saudis have even been reported to say that it is better to be an enemy of the U.S. than a friend. In such a poisonous environment it would appear that the only way we can get nations to work cooperatively to oppose ISIS would be if the U.S. demonstrated it could be relied upon once again. How can we demonstrate that? By whole-heartedly contributing to the fight against ISIS. There seems to be no way to ensure the destruction of ISIS unless we wage war against them ourselves.
Unfortunately, it appears we will have to wait for another President.
Views: 1,564