Weyman Cohen
A myriad of background knowledge is required to fully understand the beyond-complicated conflict taking place in the old-world. In the Middle East, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is spreading faster throughout the region every day. ISIS has strongholds in vast territories of Iraq and Syria, where the group originated. ISIS aims to spread their version of Sunni-Islam across the world. Their primary targets are Shia-Islamic governments in the Middle East (which are most of the Arab governments). ISIS views the United States of America and the rest of the west as the enemy that they will deal with once their forefront enemies are taken care of. However, this does not give the west a free pass from acts of terror for the time being, by any means. As ISIS recruits new followers every day, developing new militaristic strategies, acquiring new militaristic capabilities, and introducing new ways of attacking their enemies every day, the West finds itself figuring out which method is best to fight
The USA must learn from past mistakes and utilize advantages to fight a meaningful and efficient war against the Islamic State. Effective warfare strategy for the USA entails several militaristic methods of war, with drone airstrikes as the primary source; however, American and coalition-led airstrikes cannot win the war against ISIS. Airstrikes can only act as a bolster for ground troops with the intention of gaining and infiltrating ground held by ISIS.
America is just coming out of a catastrophic war in Iraq, and is wary about entering another ground war in which would likely plunge the newly-recovered economy. Americans tend to forget that the base of this war isn’t between Islam and the west, rather within sectors of Islam. Thousands of Islamic soldiers, such as the Kurds and soldiers of nearby Islamic governments are fighting ISIS each and every day. It is in America’s best interest to arm and assist these groups that are fighting on our side, rather than deploy our own troops.
America and the west can rely on countries such as Jordan as a dependable ally, which is a country with one of the most organized armies in the nation and the King of Jordan who works well in cooperation with the United States, France and other nations. Jordanians refuse to call ISIS by its name, ISIS, because they claim there is nothing Islamic about the state. The Iraqi army is unreliable, and America should not support them too heavily. This notion on the weakness of the Iraqi army yet again underscores Bush’s catastrophic invasion of Iraq, and the uncalculated decision of toppling Saddam Hussein, as one of the key components of the intervention was to strengthen the Iraqi military into a force we could count on to hold its own.
Although he is under fire by many republicans for his strategy, Obama is right in that the only American direct militaristic engagement should come from air strikes and small special operation forces. It is important to note that Obama and future commanders in chief should be wary with the amount of usage of these special op groups because past wars have shown how small ground intervention leads to more and more reliance on ground intervention.Importantly, America should NOT deploy ground troops to Iraq. Anti-American Semitism will arise among a great percentage of Muslims in the Middle East when Americans begin occupying land in their territory. Therefore, ISIS will only use our presence for recruiting, and will likely succeed.
However, The United States mustn’t take the option of deploying ground troops off the table in the public’s eye, either. At least at this point. Removing this option only decreases America’s leverage in the region and questions America’s commitment against ISIS. As much as presidential campaigns have talked about “destroying ISIS”, this outcome is highly unlikely. Intervention between the West and the Arab world has a snowball effect, and the snowball doubled in size after Bush’s invasion into Iraq. Although the matter is complicated, the fact of the matter is that once one terrorist group is destroyed, another group appears. This is result of long term turmoil that has snowballed and is constantly resonating in the Middle East. Historically, the Middle East was the region of wealth, innovation and intellect, the power center of world. In the present day, it is a pile of shambles, and Arabs say countries in the west such as the USA are to blame. They often feel as if the Middle East has lost all the respect it used to have as being a rich region. Indeed, terrorist groups such as ISIS therefore target the west in the name of Islam out of deep frustration.
The USA and the West cannot hope to “destroy” ISIS, but rather we can try to detain and
contain ISIS’s reach. Indeed, this implies a notion that the conflict with ISIS will be long-lasting.