I only mention all this because I am still trying to figure out just what the so-called "end-game" is in all this. Obama said just a couple of weeks ago that he had no strategy yet for latest evil-spirit infestation. Now he's proving it.
As a Vietnam War era veteran it feels all too familiar; expand the bombing campaign, rally regional allies, win the hearts and minds of moderates in the area. Thank goodness the region is mostly desert or we'd be defoliating the damn place as well.
Well the simple fact is that we let the metaphorical genie out of the box when we decided we could drag an entire region out of its 10th-century cocoon and into the 21st. We couldn't. And we can't. Only they can do that, and the process won't be pretty to watch. All we do by interfering is further muddle matters and further confuse the issues they, and only they, must confront.
And it's not just Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. It's also Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, Iran and Pakistan.
If you still believe we can play a useful role in that process, try to imagine how Europeans would have reacted back during the Reformation in the 16th century, had Islamic nations jumped in on one side or the other, politically and militarily. Do you figure that would have ended well? Would the Protestant sects and Catholic groups have embraced "helpful" Islamic warriors on European soil?
No. Europeans had to get that whole thing settled and out of their systems. And it wasn't pretty. Hell, even hundreds of years later, in places like Northern Ireland, it's still not entirely settled. But, for the most part, it did get sorted out, and the "Christian" West was able to get about the business of developing and advancing.
Meanwhile the Islamic world, once more advanced than Europe, slammed itself into reverse. Unreconstructed Islam became, and remains, a lodestone around their necks. And worse yet, the only arguments within the ranks of Islam is not whether to modernize, but rather how far back is far enough back. And Allah help the poor fool who suggests even the most modest liberalization.
Nevertheless, here we are bombing the crap out of one group or another over there believing, I guess, that if we get ISIS, mission accomplished. Which we already know is wrong.
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