The ever lucid and reasonable Pat Buchanan writes...
* * *
* * *
The strategy that President Obama laid out Wednesday
night to “degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL,” is
incoherent, inconsistent and, ultimately, non-credible.
A year ago, Obama and John Kerry were straining at the
leash to launch air strikes on Syrian President Bashar Assad for his alleged
use of chemical weapons in “killing his own people.”
But when Americans rose as one to demand that we stay out
of Syria, Obama hastily erased his “red line” and announced a new policy of not
getting involved in “somebody else’s civil war.”
Now, after videos of the beheadings of two U.S.
journalists have set the nation on fire, the president, reading the polls, has
flipped again.
Now Obama wants to lead the West and the Arab world
straight into Syria’s civil war. Only this time we bomb ISIL, not Assad.
Who will provide the legions Obama will deploy to crush
ISIL in Syria? The Free Syrian Army, the same rebels who have been routed again
and again and whose chances of ousting Assad were derided by Obama himself in
August as a “fantasy”?
(The FSA, the president mocked, is a force of “former
doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth.”)
Now Obama wants Congress to appropriate $500 million to
train and arm those doctors and pharmacists and send them into battle against
an army of jihadist terrorists who just bit off one-third of Iraq.
Before Congress votes a dime, it should get some answers.
Whom will this Free Syrian Army fight? ISIL alone? The
al-Nusra Front? Hezbollah in Syria? Assad’s army? How many years will it take
to train, equip and build the FSA into a force that can crush both Assad and
ISIL?
* WE SAW HOW WELL TRAINING THE AFGHAN ARMY AND POLICE
WENT! HOW MANY OF THEM TURNED AROUND AND BLEW UP OR SHOT THEIR COLLEAGUES - OR
WORSE - MURDERED AMERICANS!
* FOLKS... IT WAS ONLY LAST MONTH THAT A U.S. GENERAL WAS
MURDERED BY AN "ALLIED AFGHAN" WHO WAS NO DOUBT TRAINED AND EQUIPPED
BY US!
* HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING FROM VIETNAM... SINCE
VIETNAM... FROM IRAQ... SINCE IRAQ... FROM AFGHANISTAN... SINCE AFGHANISTAN?
“Tell me how this thing ends,” said Gen. David Petraeus
on the road up to Baghdad in 2003.
The president did not tell us how this new war ends.
If Assad falls, do the Alawites and Christians survive?
Does Syria disintegrate?
Who will rule in Damascus?
The United States spent seven years building an army to
hold Iraq together. Yet when a few thousand ISIL fighters stormed in from
Syria, that army broke and fled all the way to Baghdad.
(Even the Kurdish Peshmerga broke and ran!)
What makes us think we can succeed in Syria where we
failed in Iraq?
* AND AFGHANISTAN! AND YEMEN! AND SOMALIA... AND...
AND... AND...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* WE'RE AMERICA! WE'RE SUPPOSED
TO BE A PEACEFUL REPUBLIC! WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE AN EMPIRE! (PARTICULARLY AN
EMPIRE WHICH ONLY SPENDS BLOOD AND TREASURE MAINTAINING ITSELF FOR THE BENEFIT
OF THE OLIGARCHS WHILE "WE THE PEOPLE" GET NOTHING OUT OF THE DEAL!)
If ISIL is our mortal enemy and Syria its sanctuary,
there are two armies capable of crushing it together — the Syrian and Turkish
armies.
* LET... TURKEY... LEAD!
But Turkey, a NATO ally, was not even mentioned in
Obama’s speech.
* YEP...
Why?
* COM'ON, FOLKS... YOU KNOW WHY...
Because the Turks have been allowing jihadists to cross
into Syria, as they have long sought the fall of Assad.
* SO, AGAIN... IF TURKEY WANTS TO "PLAY THE GREAT
GAME," LET THEM TAKE THE RISKS... LET THEM SQUANDER TURKISH BLOOD AND
TREASURE! LET THEM "CARRY THEIR OWN WEIGHT" AND GIVE AMERICA'S SONS
AND DAUGHTERS A FRIGGIN' BREAK!
Now, with the Islamic State holding hostage 49 Turkish
diplomats and their families in Mosul, Ankara is even more reluctant to
intervene.
* SO WHAT GOOD ARE THEY?!
Nor is there any indication Turkey will let the United
States use its air base at Incirlik to attack ISIS.
* AGAIN... WHAT GOOD ARE THEY!?
In Iraq, too, thousands of ground troops will be needed
to dig the Islamic State out of the Sunni cities and towns. Where will these
soldiers come from?
(*SILENCE*)
We are told the Iraqi army, Shia militia, Kurds and Sunni
tribesmen will join forces to defeat and drive out the Islamic State. But these
Shia militia were, not long ago, killing U.S. soldiers.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
And, like the Iraqi army, they are feared and hated in
Sunni villages, which is why many Sunni welcomed ISIL.
(*SIGH*)
A number of NATO allies have indicated a willingness to
join the U.S. in air strikes on the Islamic State in Iraq. None has offered to
send troops. Similar responses have come from the Arab League.
* PERHAPS ISOLATIONISM IS THE ANSWER...???
But if this is truly a mortal threat, why the reluctance
to send troops?
* REASONABLE QUESTION - NO?
Some of our Arab allies, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the
Gulf Arabs, have reportedly been providing aid to ISIL in Syria. Why would they
aid these terrorists?
* "ALLIES..."
Because ISIL looked like the best bet to bring down
Assad, whom many Sunni loathe as an Arab and Alawite ally of Iran in the heart
of the “Shia Crescent” of Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and Hezbollah. For many
Sunni Arabs, the greater fear is of Shia hegemony in the Gulf and a new Persian
empire in the Middle East.
Among all the nations involved here, the least threatened
is the United States.
* EXACTLY!
Our intelligence agencies, Obama, says, have discovered
no evidence of any planned or imminent attack from ISIL.
* NOT THAT WE CAN TRUST OUR INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES...
(*FROWN*)
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