Expanding the U.S.-led ISIS War to Other Countries | World Defense

Expanding the U.S.-led ISIS War to Other Countries

Redheart

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A Disaster Waiting to Happen: Expanding the U.S.-led ISIS war to other countries | The Bullet No. 1119

According to a 29 April report in The New York Times, leaders from the U.S.-led coalition at war with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) will meet in the coming weeks to consider broadening the mission to other countries. At present, the Obama administration is attempting to secure congressional support for a measure that would authorize expanding the war to such nations as Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen. Extending U.S.-led military operations would be disastrous and should be resisted.

Western military intervention is not the way to solve the ISIS crisis. Thus far it has made few gains against the group and ISIS is still strong – despite the coalition being at war against them since the U.S. began carrying out airstrikes in August of last year. The coalition has gone on more than 3,700 bombing runs in Iraq and Syria but still ISIS holds important territories such as Mosul in Iraq and Deir Ezzor in Syria.

Recently ISIS has advanced on Damascus and attacked both Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's Anbar province, and Baiji, Iraq's largest oil refinery. There is also evidence that the number of people leaving Europe to join ISIS has actually increased in recent months. Meanwhile, there are signs of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra working together at Yarmouk, the Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. Therefore, coalition bombings are facilitating cooperation between ISIS and al-Nusra, as some earlier reports also suggest.

It's possible that all this might change and that the Western-led coalition might eventually help disperse ISIS from the territories it controls. But unless the underlying conditions that enable a group like ISIS to flourish are addressed, another similarly ruthless organization will simply take its place. Furthermore, it is absurd to expect that the killing and oppression carried out by ISIS or any other actor will by halted by U.S.-led military action, because ending tyranny and violence is plainly not the objective of the U.S. and its allies’ approach to the Middle East.

There will be terrible consequences if the war on ISIS brings to even more countries the same Western-led forces that have repeatedly undertaken profit-driven slaughters and created conditions for local parties to enslave, kill, terrorize and ethnically cleanse. Given that the U.S. elite has interests in the Middle East that are far from humanitarian, and given the continued power of ISIS, extreme credulity is required to believe that the many civilians killed by the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria are the necessary costs of defeating ISIS.

As the independent journalist Sarah Lazare writes: if the people of the Middle East are to have a brighter future, “The U.S. government must withdraw and demilitarize its failed war on terror, not only by pulling its own forces from the Middle East, but by putting out the fires it started with proxy battles and hypocritical foreign policies – including its alliances with governments that directly and indirectly support ISIS, from Saudi Arabia to Turkey.” For this to happen, social movements inside the U.S. and allied states against war and for socio-economic equality will need to be revitalized.
 

kana_marie

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I agree with a lot of the points made. But I'm undecided on if we need to end our involvement. I feel like that would appear to be us giving in. We're already considered a joke, particularly with the Iran situation. We don't need to show any more signs of weakness. Not to mention they are all spawns of satan who were sent up from the depths of hell to collect more souls by recruiting dumb kids to murder for them.
 

Redheart

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Supposing, and this is only hypothetic . . . supposing the U.S withdrew all her troops from the Middle East, would the conflicts resolve themselves? Would that mean that jihadis would let the West be?

Should the war against ISIS be expanded to other nations? Not now. Most ISIS fighters are in Syria and Iraq. Kill them all first. Once that is done, expanding the war would make sense.
 

Redheart

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Maybe sending troops would make things worse. All warring factions would team up to drive out the "infidels" first. Osama's plans I read somewhere, were to draw the U.S into a war in the Middle East and since these conflicts never end, they'd "bleed the U.S dry." That plan is working. A lot of money has been spent on the war on terror but victory isn't in sight yet.

Could the reason for expanding the US-led war on ISIS be to destabilize more Arab nations?
 

pwarbi

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When it comes to the middle east and IS, I think the west is in a no win situation to be honest. If we go in all gun's blazing, like what's happened in the past, people will say that we've gone in too strong, it's not our fight.

At the moment, the west are sitting back a little and waiting to see what happens in the middle east before deciding what to do. But now people are saying that countries like the US and the UK should he doing more to help the middle east deal with ISIS, so which is it?
 

Redheart

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Even if one group of extremist militias is defeated, another will spring up to take their place. It's a cycle that never will end unless the West stops sticking its nose into affairs that don't concern them. One would ask, wouldn't that create a vacuum of sorts?

No.

The days when Arab nations would ask the West for assistance are gone. Take a look at Yemen. The Saudi's took the initiative and crushed the Houthis. Should that approach be used to get rid of terrorists from the Middle East, I'm sure they'll win. I believe that only Muslims have the ability to defeat them terrorists.
 

kana_marie

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I suspect we'll do whatever saves face. Appearing weak or soft isnt an option.
 
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