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Ramadi: The Cemetery of Americans
On the one hand, I hate to write about this on Memorial Day. On the other, it seems all the more an obligation precisely because it’s Memorial Day.
Michael Fumento just sent me a link to his latest column about Ramadi. He’s as baffled as I am that the coalition stood by and watched idly as ISIS captured it. He makes the points I’ve been making and many more, but does so with more authority, given that he was embedded in Ramadi in 2006.
Ramadi is a city of vast importance, both strategic and symbolic. It’s the city that al-Qaida in Iraq chose as its headquarters, and it became the most fiercely contested area in the country. It’s why SEAL Team 3 of “American Sniper” fame was stationed there and became the most decorated SEAL unit since Vietnam.
Many experts consider the Battle of Ramadi and the “Anbar Awakening,” engineered by Capt. Travis Patriquin, the actual turning point of the war. Patriquin — who a few months after briefing me on his brilliant plan was killed in Ramadi — got the Sunni chieftains to join the Americans and Iraqi security forces to defeat al-Qaida.
Yet, bizarrely, the Obama administration wrote off Ramadi last month, declaring that defense of an oil refinery took precedence — as if we couldn’t do both. (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey claimed, “It has no symbolic meaning.” Now Dempsey says Islamic State “gains in Ramadi are a serious setback for its long-suffering inhabitants.”)
In any event, within days the refinery was out of danger. Yet, the administration still refused to defend Ramadi.
Refused? Strong words! But true.
Military officials claimed a sandstorm prevented good air support during a major IS push. The Times devoted a story to supporting this, but don’t buy it. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), used by American aircraft for the past decade, can see through sandstorms.
Moreover, on no day previously did the U.S. launch more than a handful of sorties in defense of Ramadi, and on many days it flew none.
Yet, area assets include hundreds of strike aircraft, most of which can fly several sorties a day. These comprise F-16s, F-15s, F-22s, A-10s, B-1 heavy bombers, helicopters, and Reaper and Predator drones among U.S. forces, plus aircraft of 11 other coalition nations.
A single Reaper can carry a mix of 14 bombs and missiles, meaning it’s capable of that many airstrikes. Cruise missiles are also in theater, and the U.S. can hit with heavy B-52 and B-2 bombers from anywhere in the world.
Yet with this massive armada and with assets on the ground to help identify targets, the administration seems unable to find and strike more than a handful of targets daily. A machine gun here, a truck there. By comparison, during the 1968 siege of Khe Sanh, American aircraft dropped roughly 1,300 tons of bombs daily — five tons each day for every North Vietnamese soldier besieging the base.
But it’s not just Ramadi that Obama has neglected. Fact is, the so-called air war against IS is a fraud. Rarely are more than a couple of dozen targets struck in a day throughout both Iraq and Syria.
Obama is simply keeping U.S. air power grounded. And nobody in the mainstream media is pointing this out, even though the Defense Department provides regular reports at Defense.gov. In fact, the Times referred to “intensified American airstrikes in recent weeks in a bid to save the city.” (Emphasis added.) Sheer fabrication.
Why is there talk of the air war failing when it never even began?
Read the whole column. I can’t argue with a word of it. I’m every bit as bewildered as he is. He writes, “It’s time for Congress and the presidential candidates to make this an issue. Alas, for Ramadi it’s too late. IS has scored a huge coup and the slaughter of our allies already has begun.” And I would add that it’s time for the media to make this an issue. Above all, it’s time for the American people to make this an issue. I’m at a loss to understand why they aren’t already.
Surely we owe that much to our veterans, past and future? We can say we honor them until the words “We Honor our Veterans” are stamped on every hot dog and hamburger bun in the realm, but how can that be meaningful if, at the same time, we barely bat our eyes at the fall of Ramadi, and accept these transparently lunatic excuses about “sandstorms” and the like as if we were little children?
And what of honoring our future veterans? They’re the ones who will be sent to deal with this horror when finally it becomes something even Obama can no longer ignore. By that point, they will be fighting a vastly larger, more experienced, and better-armed enemy. And at this rate, that point is not far off. We would far better honor our veterans, past and future, by demanding an honest–or even a plausible–explanation for this debacle. They’re entitled to one. And so is every American.
Published in General
Shocking.
Then the IS post victory parade was ripe for targeting but nothing.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/this_war_is_a_joke_if_this_parade_is_possible/
The American President has no stomach for the fight, the American press will do nothing to make a Democrat President, especially the first black one look bad. The American people have their own problems, and will not take up the fight unless leadership explains why they should.
More to the point is how do you fight when you have a President that refuses to do so?
Without deprecating the fire power and the target identifying assets we can bring to bear, locating those targets with the precision needed for weapon delivery by remote control isn’t that straightforward. Complicate that with the hypersensitivity extant regarding collateral damage, and the intermingling of Daesh among civilians explicitly to run up the cost of that collateral damage, and I’m not surprised at the target service rate we’re generating.
I agree with the overall thrust of Fumento’s post.
I also have a slightly different take on the surrender of Ramadi that’s going up on my blog tomorrow:
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Iraqi’s pseudo-defense of Ramadi, that the Iraqi army hasn’t the will to fight.
The Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight. They were not outnumbered. In fact they vastly outnumbered the opposing force and yet they failed to fight and withdrew from the site… We can give them training, we can give them equipment. We obviously can’t give them the will to fight.
They cut and ran, abandoning that American-supplied equipment, small arms and vehicles among it, to the Daesh and abandoning the city and its remaining residents to those terrorists.
Hakim al Zamili, of the Iraqi Parliament’s Sadrist movement (you remember al Sadr) and chairman of the Security and Defense Committee, objected to that characterization.
The Iraqi army and police did have the will to fight [the] IS group in Ramadi, but these forces lack good equipment, weapons, and aerial support.
No, Hakim, Carter was being generous. Your Iraqi “army” is an insult to armies everywhere; in Ramadi they were stinking cowards who ran away. They wouldn’t fight to defend themselves, or their fellow soldiers, not even their families somewhere else. Here was the fight, and they shrank from it.
The reason they lacked “good equipment, weapons” is because they, once again, abandoned them and left them for the Daesh. Air support? As an American general said in an earlier war, they don’t need air support; they need to fight. The Daesh had no air support, they needed no air support for their inferior numbers to run your “army” out of the city.
No, it’s time for the US to stop using the Iraq Army Transfer Facility to arm and equip Daesh. We should, instead, arm and train—directly—the Kurds and the Sunni and Shiite militias. These are the ones who have the heart to fight, these are the ones who have the skill to fight, these are the ones who have an actual track record of success against the Daesh.
Redirecting our arms and training also would give us an opportunity to turn the Shiite militias away from Iran.
Eric Hines
As H.L. Mencken said so eloquently; “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” Any people that would knowingly elect this disgrace of a President, richly deserve what they get.
Ramadi is Exhibit #1 against the belief that peace can be accomplished if you just stop fighting. Those people are being slaughtered, and there are more to come.
This victory at Ramadi was seen by progressives as Petraeus’ victory, as the triumph of the intestinal fortitude of George W. Bush and the hated Surge.
As such, it could not stand. Just like the equilibrium maintained under Nixon and Abrams in south Vietnam to stabilize their lives until the NVA rolled south to gather their prize from the Democratic congress.
Soon, the Ramadi victory you reference will have never happened. Just ask the New York Times in twenty years.
Twas ever thus. There is no prize that they will not discard, then bury. A Democratic victory always trumps an American victory.
The Kurds will no how, no way, fight for anyone but themselves. Arming the Hashd al-Shaabi is arming Iran. There’s no reason to arm them because a) Iran is doing a bang-up job of that already; b) the appearance that we’ve entered an alliance with Iran (which may well be a reality, from all I can see) is terrifying the region and will hasten the rush toward the total destruction of the NPT; and c), while it’s true that they have the will to fight and the track record (as Suleimani boasts), they also have the ability to win, which means everything from Tehran to the Med will become the Greater and Nuked-Up Persian Empire.
Co-opting the Sunni militia, however, makes sense. As does using air power to counter the really unfortunate impression we’ve now given the entire world, viz., that ISIS is somehow able to roll right through our “increasing air strikes” (given that we’re reputed to be the most technologically advanced military in the world, this looks like irrefragable proof to Sunni militants that God’s on their side); or, to those less inclined toward to view things through a Sunni eschatological lens, evidence that we’ve washed our hands of things and turned the whole region over to Iran.
Do you have any reason to think they can be turned away from Iran? They’re under the Iranian chain of command. It sure doesn’t seem to me they’re in this for the money, the arms, or the training.
As we honor our war dead on this day, I would be loathe to suggest we should add more due to decisons by this disaster of an adminstration.
I know, I really know that I should care deeply about this article. I read Michael Totten’s dispatches, as well, and remain mystified at our policy. I have a nephew-in-law who fought house-to-house in Ramadi, experiencing heaven-knows-what. He doesn’t talk about it, at least to me. I can only imagine what he feels and remembers when he sees the news reports of late.
That said, as we do not have civilian leaders who have a world-view that understands that the USA is a force for good in the world, that our military leaders seem to have – by my reading – bought into the incredibly specious notion that the single most important area of focus for them is the ignorant idea that our failing social experiement in acheiving absolute diversity (actually more simply put – “get rid of the exprienced white guys), all while purging our warrior class of the stuff that – you know – makes them warriors, I can’t help but feel our defenders would be far better served if they let it burn over there. It is far past time for the surrounding nations stepped up and fought their own battle.
I know this means the region will be dangerously unstable. I just can’t seem to shake the notion that, under this regime, not a single life is worth sacrificing on their particular altar of amoral leadershp, fecklessness, and incompetance.
Well, they are–that’s exactly what Iran’s doing.
War is won only by the clear-eyed and dispassionate. As horribly insensitive as it may seem to say on Memorial Day, I’m afraid the concept of “sunk costs” applies to war as much as it does economics and business decision-making.
Second, do you really want this feckless bunch of poseurs in Washington trying to re-fight the Battle of Ramadi let alone the Iraq war? What could more likely be disastrous?
When they twice elected him President, every voter understood we would withdraw and flush victory down the drain in Iraq and Afghanistan. We gave 6500 precious lives in those two cr@p holes (4400 in Iraq), will soon have spent 14 years and have already spent more than $1 Trillion. Enough. Let it go. We have to overthrow the regime in Washington before we ever again overthrow a regime overseas.
Nicely done. Thank you.
Claire,
I get it. I don’t’ like it and I’d just as soon have Iran be an isolated basket-case that burns themselves out without absorbing Iraq. But if we don’t have civilian leaders that have a clue how to let our military do their job, what other choice does the world have?
We are being ruled by college professors who think WE are the problem, not the solution. They have no plan. There is no amount of hope that’s going to change that.
This is not about sunk costs or the past. Its about the future and the ability to identify and deal with our security threats. the current administration has decided that there is little or nothing that is worth fighting for, including our long term security interests.
They do, but the argument cuts both ways. No matter how much has been sunk, the reality is that we’ve now got a spreading and enormously dangerous Islamic Caliphate, and that only two powers could even conceivably stop it–the United States and Iran. Which of these three awful options do you prefer? Because one will happen.
How does the logic of this work: We’re so furious at the American people for electing Obama that we’ll put no pressure on his administration and ask no questions about this–even as this spins more and more wildly out of control, more people are slaughtered, and the region becomes more and more dangerous to the world?
The Kurds will no how, no way, fight for anyone but themselves. Arming the Hashd al-Shaabi is arming Iran.
Nor did I suggest the Kurds would fight for anyone but themselves. They will, though, fight alongside anyone willing to fight with them against Daesh. Regarding arming the Hashd al Shaabi, a couple things: they’re not the only Kurds willing to fight Daesh and able to be successful. Second, arming them is arming Iran seems to contradict the premise that they’ll fight only for themselves. They’re not fighting for Iran, anymore than they’re interested in fighting for Iraq. Or for us. They will, though, accept weapons and support from anyone. And keep them when the fighting is done.
…the appearance that we’ve entered an alliance with Iran (which may well be a reality, from all I can see) is terrifying the region….
That’s a communications problem, not a question of whom to arm or whether. Destroy the NPT? That’s a stretch too far. It’s already in the toilet with multiple hands ready to pull the flusher. Obama and his European Group +1 are doing a fine job of that, along with the Saudis getting ready to call in their markers from funding Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.
…everything from Tehran to the Med will become the Greater and Nuked-Up Persian Empire.
Step by step. You’re making the same mistake Progressives and too many “conservatives” in Congress make: you’re demanding all or nothing and purity of the all. The Kurds, of any stripe, have no more interest in becoming an Iranian satrapy than they had of being an Iraqi or Turkish fiefdom (to mix metaphors). Certainly many of the Kurdish leadership are unsavory, but they’re less unsavory than Iranian, or Daesh, or recovered al Qaeda leadership, so their rise, even as a separate polity in the region (or especially so) would represent progress for us. The mistake here would be to rest on that thorny laurel, saying that, yes they’re unsavory, but they’re our unsavory. No, the trick will be to avoid our past mistakes in that regard and use the fact that they’re our unsavory to move them in a less unsavory direction rather than accepting them as they are and calling it a good day’s work.
….using air power to counter the really unfortunate impression we’ve now given the entire world, viz., that ISIS is somehow able to roll right through our “increasing air strikes….”
Against what targets? How much collateral damage are you willing to inflict? I’m certainly down with stepping up the pace–a lot–but a couple of things need to change before that’s…feasible. One is the political climate so we can inflict (absorb, some might say) more collateral damage. The other is coordination with ground forces–those militias and Kurds, for instance–so that the air strikes can be exploited while the smoke still is rising. Just taking pot shots in what is, essentially, a CAS operation is a waste of ammunition.
Do you have any reason to think they can be turned away from Iran?
Frankly not much, but it’s non-zero, too. These guys fought alongside us in prior wars; they can do it again. At worst, though, and this includes the possibility that you’re right that arming some Kurds means arming the Iranians, it’s a small bet to lose. The weapons and equipment that would be transferred to Iran via the Shiite militias (and maybe some Kurds) are pretty small potatoes compared to the weapons suite the Iranian forces already have. It is, though, a large increment for Daesh’s weapons suite.
Eric Hines
I can’t help but think of the German and/or Russian propaganda broadcasts during World War II.
“The heroic soldiers of the Motherland have defeated the German invaders in heavy fighting outside of Smolensk.”
Of course, three weeks ago the front was 100 miles west of Smolensk, but that information is unimportant.
On a side note, our recent failures in the war on ISIS has given me ammo in discussions with libs on the Second Amendment. Most libs argue that the citizenry do not need guns because if it came down to fighting off and overturning the US government that armed citizens do not stand a chance against the US military. Now I can point and say, you mean those same guys that can’t seem to win a war against a bunch of junior varsity rock throwers from a third world nation? Seriously?
It is funny to watch their mind ping pong between a military that is so strong it can not be defied, or one that is so weak that third world tribes can beat it or maybe that its commander POTUS is so inept that he can not win a battle with it. You can see a second of reality trying to enter their head before the fall back to name calling.
Claire – it’s not about being “furious with the American people.” It’s about being realistic as to our options. Whence this mythical “pressure” of yours is to emerge?
Voters? Obviously not. Media? That’s ridiculous. Democrats? Even more ridiculous. GOP? In an election season? Maybe a soon-to-be-irrelevant candidate or two will be the “I want to go (back) to war in Iraq” candidate, but I doubt it.
Add to that (I’m sort of with paulebe here): put as much pressure as you want on this regime, they don’t care one wit about it. Even if you are successful in shaming them to take action, that action will be ineffective at best and (far more likely) disastrous to our interests, at worst.
Summarizing: the American people are simply done with Iraq. Can you blame them? Sorry, they don’t much care about the atrocities. Should they? Different question. But trying to re-frame our need to retake Ramadi as enlightened self-interest is not, in my view, likely to gain any traction with the American people at large. Failure–not just elections–has consequences.
Well, the thesis that we spent so much blood and treasure in Ramadi previously that we must re-attack now is about sunk costs, I’m afraid.
I think you are wrong about this administration . . . they fight tenaciously for what they want. For example, leaving our borders open to invading immigrants, lopsided nuclear deals with Russia & Iran, unprecedented deficit spending, humiliating allies like Israel and Poland, stoking racial and class tensions, suppressing media that’s not towing its line . . . above all, locking-in Democrat electoral advantages and using the power of the Federal government to punish political opponents.
I’d say the administration actually has quite an impressive record of fighting for what it wants.
They’re the Shi’a militia, not Kurds–sorry if that was confusing.
I agree that this is true of the Kurds.
These things aren’t just a communications problem when there are real things happening on the ground. No amount of improved communication can change the perception that we’re in bed with Iran if in fact we’re arming paramilitary forces under their control.
Agree, but it’s very foolish to hasten this.
I’m not, although I think many are, so I see where you’re coming from. I’m actually arguing something of a contrary point–we have to accept that we’re choosing among terrible options.
Even assuming we can see our way through to a united Kurdish entity–let’s assume that for the sake of argument–it just doesn’t get us anywhere.
Me, personally? Or the American people? Or is the question whether we risk driving people into ISIS’ or Iran’s arms by killing civilians?
Do you mean that more destruction, genocide, and enslavement has to happen before people on the ground will accept that? Or before Americans will?
I’d argue that only the latter truly matters at this point. I also don’t think any level of horror in Iraq is going to strike the typical voter as warranting the level of US ground forces that are required to stop the slaughter. Clearly the Iraqis will not fight–just ask SECDEF if you don’t believe me. So the number of troops on the ground we’d need is substantial.
The American public doesn’t much care which Islamic faction imposes horror on innocents in Iraq, any more than it cares about that same issue in, say, Sudan, Yeman, etc.
Frankly, I’ve not heard a compelling reason why the average voter should much care, given who is in charge in Washington at this time. Pray tell, what is that argument? In 2015 or 2016, whose son or daughter should die for Iraq and why?
Exactly this. We are a nation still at war. Yet our political class seems to have completely forgotten this. One job of the Commander in Chief should be to explain to the citizens frequently why we have troops in the middle east and what their mission is. I don’t think anyone really knows the answer to those questions.
The president seems to think that if he chooses not to acknowledge the war, then it’s not happening. Reality is what he deems it to be.
The American people need leadership. What they’ve got is President Selfie.
Miss Claire, I think you’re bound to lose the argument, but I think it is worth arguing nevertheless. I’m glad to see you’re doing it.
I think it is simply prudent politics for people closer to the GOP than they are to the Dems to understand all the evil. Americans seem to have replaced practical knowledge by being pragmatic–that’s where you ignore useless evil or useless good. That’s dangerous. Practical wisdom means knowing evil for what it is. GOP politicians rarely seem to know that–the others seem to think that there is not that there.
Whoever can persuade people to take this seriously should do it. What is going on in Iraq is not only horror past tragedy for the people there, but it matters for America as well on a prudential level. Americans may not know what it means to win a war anymore, but your politicians are all too comfortable with losing wars, so this has to change, one losing argument at a time.
This is not about clever strategy talk or politicking, it’s about people remembering what shame & fear mean. Americans are not callous or cruel. Do you know the phrase, the tears of strangers are mostly waters? Maybe scientists might make sense of it, but Americans do not know that phrase. Someone like Sen. Rubio or Sen. Cotton could speak up about what is at stake–but before that happens, it has got to be said by others-
They’re the Shi’a militia, not Kurds–sorry if that was confusing.
The name didn’t sound Kurdish; I should have paid better attention. I stand by my overall claim here, though. The Kurds will take help from any quarter; they’re fighting for their existence against Daesh.
And so will/are the Shiite militia. They’re Arab, not Persian.
These things aren’t just a communications problem when there are real things happening on the ground. No amount of improved communication can change the perception that we’re in bed with Iran if in fact we’re arming paramilitary forces under their control.
Communication failure is at the heart of a lot of these real things, though. As to the premise that we’re “arming paramilitary forces under [Iranian] control,” I’m less worried about that for a couple of reasons. One is the fact that Persian control over Arab forces is a sometime thing. The other, larger thing IMNSHO, is the proximate and critical goal: killing Daesh. Like the Kurds and the Arab militias, both Sunni and Shiite, I’ll fight alongside anyone who’s willing to kill Daesh with me. I’ll worry about the Iranian provenance of much of the Kurds’ and militias’ support after that. Domestically, I’ll let the successful destruction of Daesh address the question of my fighting, at several removes, alongside Iran.
Obviously, I have to take steps during the current fight to shape the political (and perhaps continued military) battlefield that will exist after the present fight, but that’s a thing to be done in parallel, and entwined, with the present fight. It shouldn’t be done instead of, or begun only after, the present fight.
[I]t’s very foolish to hasten this.
Destruction of the NPT won’t be hastened by this by five minutes. Iran already is months away from nuclear warheads; the current “negotiations” only codify that pace.
[W]e have to accept that we’re choosing among terrible options.
Agree. But we have to positively make that choice, not have it thrust upon us through our hand-wringing. And we have to have that subsequent battlefield conditioned by what we do now and a plan in place for dealing with that political battlefield. It’s just…stupid…to come at that de nihilo in real time.
Even assuming we can see our way through to a united Kurdish entity–let’s assume that for the sake of argument–it just doesn’t get us anywhere.
I don’t see a need for a united, single Kurdistan to satisfy my purpose here; I’m not sure the Kurds do, either, except perhaps for ego. Where it gets us, though, is a) serious contribution toward the destruction of Daesh; b) the rise of a polity (or perhaps a couple or three) that with decent diplomacy (admittedly an historic failing of ours) gives us entry into the region that b1) gives us counters to Iran and Turkey, b2) another look angle into Iran, and b3) a long-shot opportunity to expand the periphery of liberal democracy, albeit that would be of a different breed of liberal democracy compared to what we’re used to; c) another set of polities with the potential of joining Jordan as, if not Israeli allies, at least Israeli peaceful acquaintances.
Me, personally? Or the American people? Or is the question whether we risk driving people into ISIS’ or Iran’s arms by killing civilians?
It was your claim for American air power, so grammatically, the question was addressed to you. [g] But take it as generically addressed. Me, I’m willing to inflict all the collateral damage needed to kill Daesh, so long as the specific targets have the value that warrants the added damage–that’s an assessment the West has made for a hundred years of war. Here’s that communication problem, too: the damage we’ll inflict will be far less than the damage Daesh will inflict–and their damage won’t be collateral; it’ll be their goal. I don’t think most Americans will have a problem with that, given a) balanced information–that communications thing, again–and b) the destruction of Daesh.
Do you mean that more destruction, genocide, and enslavement has to happen before people on the ground will accept that? Or before Americans will?
False choices. I mean that the political climate must change. Nor more, nor less. Domestic political climate; I wasn’t clear on that. I’m one of those rednecks who’s fully willing to act unilaterally, taking international opinion only for what it can do for me and mine, it otherwise having exactly zero value.
Eric Hines
Yesterday, as I am wont to do daily, I went for a walk. Because of inclement weather, my path became “The Link” at Crown Center, the home of Hallmark Cards in Kansas City. This is an above street, acclimatized, glass walkway that connects several hotels, office buildings, and the Union Station.
Upon entering Union Station at one end of my walk, I came right upon a display in the form of a kiosk that contained pictures of fallen soldiers of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars from Missouri and Kansas. Walking around the kiosk looking at the young, handsome faces, one could not avoid reading the notes attached to the photos from adoring family members…notes filled with anguish and love. At one picture there was no note, however to the bottom right corner another photo was posted. It was a little boy hugging the gravestone of his Daddy.
We have fought three wars now -Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq- where our politicians have sent our young, bright, and brave to fight and die. For what? If the blood soaked land of battle conquered by these brave young Americans is of little importance just a few years later, was it really necessary for them to have given their lives for it then? I have no answers for these questions-just a gnawing in the pit of my stomach.
View from inside the Link of WWI memorial across from the Union Station.
Whether the average voter should care has nothing to do with who’s in Washington. The average voter should care about ISIS for four reasons.
1. ISIS is a millenarian Islamic force such as we’ve never seen in the modern era. I think of all the articles for a non-specialist press describing what it is, this one in the Atlantic is the best by far. Please do read it in full, but I’ll extract a few key phrases with which I fully agree:
Given that–all very accurate to the best of my knowledge–I think it’s only logical to assume that the Caliphate will keep expanding until stopped. In doing so, it will rape, behead, immiserate and enslave–which is in and of itself a reason to “care,” in my view; these are human beings; but what’s more, it will expand and grow more powerful. It will–and by its ideology, must–eventually attack the West. Even if you care not a bit for the innocent lives it takes en route to that goal, the US is treaty-bound to protect NATO members. So unless ISIS is stopped, we will find ourselves at war with ISIS, and with every day, ISIS becomes a more fearful enemy that will inflict vastly higher costs–on us–when that day comes.
2) This region can’t afford to wait for the US election process to play out. ISIS is gaining territory now, killing people now, destroying whole cities and ancient ways of life now. Under those circumstances, people will seek frantically for a protector; and if the United States refuses to play that role, there is only one alternative, and that is Iran.
3) A vastly empowered Iran that has contained or even vanquished ISIS will become a superpower, displacing whatever remains of America’s influence in the region. That will cause other powers in the region to scramble for a nuclear deterrent, which will of course set off a more dangerous nuclear-arms race than the world has so far seen–more dangerous because multipolar, and because the players’ ideology is focused on martyrdom by suicide. If you’re concerned for Israeli security or indeed for the security of any human being in the greater Middle East or southern Europe, the danger is obvious. Even assuming an inhuman indifference to suffering and genocide, the direction toward which this is moving is one in which the economic impact of the war–if the oil fields or shipping access to them are destroyed–would be sufficient to bring the global economy to a halt. But this is assuming an indifference to suffering that is, in my view, absolutely unnatural for Americans, and from which our sense of ourselves as an ethical nation with a moral purpose in the world would never recover.
4) Every tyrant and psychopath the world around will take the following lesson from our failure to intervene: There is nothing, no matter how spectacularly evil, or outright dangerous to America and its interests, that will prompt Americans to use its military. It is therefore nothing to be feared. Clearly, this will have a knock-on effect in every corner of the globe. So great will that impression be, it will be as if we have no military at all. No greater proof could there be that our military is for decorative purposes only. Giving this impression risks a world system that quickly devolves into an anarchic free-for-all in which the best-armed and most ruthless win. Again, assuming a world in which Americans don’t care about the moral issues, this would also be a disaster for American economic interests: such thugs would not abide by the laws to which civilized nations have adhered since the end of the Second World War. Freedom of the seas? Forget it. Non-aggression among nations? Forget it. America is no longer in the picture. It will have the effects of the decline of the Ottoman Empire on the power balance of Europe, but it will be global.
That’s why you should care: because this will happen whether or not Obama’s in office. There is a chance that if he’s confronted with overwhelming public demand that he take action, more will be done. Some is better than none. A public that says, “Why should we care?” gives him infinite latitude to do nothing at all and to kick this problem down the line. It will catch up with us then–or perhaps even before then–and it will be more costly and more bloody the longer we wait.
This isn’t the Rwandan genocide–humanly awful, but unlikely to touch us. This will touch us, and the only question is when we’ll stop it, not if, and how bad it will be when we do.
Let me do the math here; 1,300 tons/5 tons = 260. The siege of Khe Sanh was carried out by 260 NVA? That hardly seems likely.
From your keyboard to God’s inbox Claire. If only your optimism/faith were contagious, I’d be able to convince myself to feel better about events. Obama has demonstrated himself to be a malignant narcissist bordering on sociopathy. The best frame that can be put on it is that he is entirely disassociated with reality, fiddling with climate change speeches to the Coast Guard Academy graduates while Ramadi falls and Palmyra burns.
I have one son who’s active duty Army, one active reserve in college with plans to go back when he graduates. I don’t want either of them sent into harm’s way under President Obama who I wouldn’t trust to take care of a dog I didn’t like, or to organize a two car funeral. Not only because I think he’s incompetent and in way over his head, nor only because he’s a malignant narcissist, but also I believe he really wants America diminished. Why should any American want any troop’s lives put at risk just so their victory can be transmuted into defeat at the whim of a politician for a campaign talking point like Obama precipitately pulling out of Iraq in 2011. Even if a George Patton/Chester Nimitz ticket won in 2016, the Left would stab the troops, our country, and our allies in the back at the earliest possible opportunity, just like the way they did to Vietnam, just like they did as soon as they felt it was safe to do so after 9/11/01.
The American people have what they voted for, twice. Next year we’re going to find out whether we, collectively, are ready to come back to our senses.
Claire – those arguments—setting aside merits for now—would have to come from the President and a majority in Congress to have any chance of changing public opinion. They are not and they will not. Given that, they are meaningless in terms of what is happening and will happen (at least) until Obama is gone.
IDK what to make of your claim that “Whether the average voter should care has nothing to do with who’s in Washington.” Average voters elected Obama and average voters are being fought over by Ms. Obama Redux and a bevy of GOP hopefuls. Average voters have heard the Middle East apocalypse you convey for nearly 15 years, if not their whole lives.
Oh, this time we really, really mean it…is that the argument? No one is buying it! Voters do not agree that they must offer up yet more teenagers and 20-somethings to an endless bloodbath among medieval crazies.
SECDEF just told voters that with superior numbers and firepower Iraqis run away, leaving our expensive gear behind. Against this reality there’s going to be public support for re-fighting the Battle of Ramadi? How many politicians will even attempt this argument?
If Iran stops ISIS or ISIS stymies Iran. . .practically speaking, no one cares. May each bleed the other side white. We are ready to watch from the sidelines. Your narrative—undelivered by their President, by their Senators, by their expected Presidential candidates—will not convince anyone we should jump in.