Kurdish refugees from Kobani watch as thick smoke covers their city during fighting between ISIS and Kurdish peshmerga forces on Oct. 26, 2014. Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters
Obama’s Quagmire -- Fred Kaplan, Slate
America’s campaign against ISIS has already lost its way.
America’s war against ISIS is quickly turning into a quagmire.
A few signs of progress have sprung up in recent days. U.S. airstrikes have slowed down the Islamist group’s onslaught against the Kurdish town of Kobani in northern Syria. A much-cheered caravan of Kurdish peshmerga fighters is making its way from Iraq to join the battle.
But even if the Kurds push ISIS out of Kobani, what does that signify in the larger struggle? What happens next? And what is the Obama administration’s desired endgame and its path for getting there? These questions have no clear answers, and that speaks volume.
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My Comment: This part of the world has been a "quagmire" since the beginning of civilization. A U.S./foreign intervention can only do so much .... in the end .... it is the people who live there who must decide on the future that they want.
8 comments:
As long as they coincidently live on top of all our oil, they will never be allowed to create their own future.
I agree with WNU Editor's comment. Although I rarely agree with anything the Obama Administration does, I think that they are right to keep the Middle East/ISIS disaster at arms length.
1. There are many people and nations who would love to see the West, and the United States specifically, fight ISIS to the last American. Some of them (such as wealthy Saudis) play a dangerous double game of supporting ISIS in Iraq/Syria but not wanting ISIS for themselves. Some Sunnis view ISIS as a weapon with which to bash Shiites, or Iran, or their neighbors. Iran views their nuclear program as more important than ISIS, but would not approve an ISIS victory anywhere. Iran would very much enjoy seeing the United States fight ISIS for them.
2. The Obama Administration is right to restrict American involvement. I agree that air power alone won't defeat ISIS. To defeat ISIS, an army must invade their territory and conquer it, probably including a massacre of all ISIS fighters. But the army that conquers ISIS' territory will have to be locals and/or neighbors. If people in Syria and Iraq don't want to live under ISIS, then they must do the heavy lifting, and take the casualties. None of the locals, nor the neighbors, will fight unless they are convinced that the West won't do the fighting for them.
3. Air power has forced ISIS to stop concentrating their forces and to limit use of heavy weapons. This has shifted the correlation of forces to something closer to even odds.
4. The quagmire does exist, but the locals, not the West, are bogged down in it. I have said before that I don't see any swift resolution to the fight between the Sunnis and Shiites, which resembles the Thirty Years War in Europe.
5. One of the very few things the Sunnis and Shiites share is their antipathy to the West (in both its secular and Christian forms), so we have unusually bad offices with both sides. In this context, our best interest is to keep clear, except in a limited way to impede an ISIS victory.
Thank you for your comment Publius .... it is always a joy to read your analysis. As usual .... you summarize the situation succinctly.
"Some of them (such as wealthy Saudis) play a dangerous double game of supporting ISIS in Iraq/Syria but not wanting ISIS for themselves." Yes, it is very dangerous for these Saudis, given Isis's ideological basis they (the Saudis) are very very high on ISIS's to do list. Sort of a go cleanse the temple thing.
Yes ISIS has shifted tactics, but I'm not so sure they've lost that much momentum. Maybe they have, but it also could be only in those areas where we are focusing air power and where the news media is focusing their attention to the detriment of other places.
Saudi Arabia is pumping more oil when slack demand and economics would dictate the smart move would be pump less.
Pumping less but at a higher profit margin would net them the same revenue plus have the benefit of having more resources left in the ground for future revenue,
This might seem to be a simple replay of the 1980s when the Saudis flooded the market to help defeat the USSR with low oil prices.
However, at the same time states lie Texas were hit very hard by the low prices.
In the last 2 years some Saudi princes exclaimed that fracking was a threat to Saudi Arabia.
Lowering the oil prices hurts Syria's backer Russia and may put a crimp in Iran too. It is a matter of relative cost of pumping oil and who can take the pain and punishment.
Obama is not going to try to send Kerry to try to persuade the Saudis to cut back production to save American jobs. He wants the pain. He will blame the oil bust & resulting unemployment and economic downturn in North Dakota and other places on a Republican victory or gridlock in Washington. He wants green energy and any destruction and pain in the American oil industry works to his advantage. It is Obama's way or the highway. If you do not go hos way he does not care an iota about your pain.
MANY OF US DO NOT WANT MIDDLE EASTERN OIL. THEY CAN KEEP IT. We'll do just fine with nuclear energy fracking, oil sands, bio- diesel, wind, solar and everything else.
The Middle East is creating its' own future in the fight over the Shia-Sunni split and the all around hatred of kafirs.
"The Obama Administration is right to restrict American involvement."
Might as well stay out at this point. As long as Iran is hostile the the U.S. and the West I would not want to fight their wars for them.
There is no longer any wonderful mosaic in the Middle East. It is almost momochrome with 2 slightly different shades of the same color. Since the Obama administration has let it come to this point and all the minorities have been purged, we might as well them fight it out and bleed each other.
"I have said before that I don't see any swift resolution to the fight between the Sunnis and Shiites, which resembles the Thirty Years War in Europe."
Maybe they have to have the protracted, bloody, stupid Hellish war.
But it do not have to be these way IMHO. If we had supported the Persian Spring and not been in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood we might have been looking at a much better more peaceful Middle East.
But during the Persian Spring we voted "PRESENT" and sat on our hands.
Anyway the Yazidis seem nice and all, I think we should resettle them in California or British Columbia or somewhere.
Yup, America, the West, Europe or the Illuminati are in charge?
Saudi Arabia Raises Asia, Europe Prices; Cuts US Prices
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-03/saudi-arabia-raises-asia-europe-prices-cuts-us-prices
It appears, just as we warned two weeks ago, that the 'dumping strategy' designed to punish Obama's nemesis Putin could have morphed into a Saudi Arabian strategy to keep its foot on the neck of the US Shale Oil industry
While not a primary course of US oil, we suspect the signaling of this move is more worrisome for Shale capex (especially as we noted Saudi Arabia can survive 7.9 years at lower prices) Forget currency wars, meet oil wars...
Why Oil Is Plunging: The Other Part Of The "Secret Deal" Between The US And Saudi Arabia
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-10/why-oil-plunging-other-part-secret-deal-between-us-and-saudi-arabia
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