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Originally Posted by over the mountain
ISIS is still not our battle imo. Obama has kept our involvement and cost in this pretty limited compared to what i assume a Jeb Bush type would do. Obama won bc the american people wanted to withdraw our troops and resources from the ME. I dont want us to be committed to a long term "boots on ground" type situation. it didnt work in Afghanistan and it wont work in Syria/Iraq.
We should stay part of a coalition, supporting but not leading europe, jordan, SA etc.
Obama has done a great job of keeping us out of the ME as much as possible. Down side is he will get blamed for looking weak and if something happens his policy of disengagement will be blamed ... regardless of whether a "boots on the ground and a perpetual occupation" campaign would have prevented anything.
ME is fucked. damned if you do, damned if you dont. i dont understand it. way to many moving parts and blurry lines.
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Europe was just as crazy in the early 1900's, and one of the things that finally resolved it was long term US presence - obviously other factors around the 2 WW's as well. I think, and I know I am heavily in the minority, that the US missed an opportunity to set up a long term solution by investing in bases in Iraq at the end of the last war. Instead of pulling out, and creating the dreaded political vacuum we now see being filled, an all in strategy, incorporating Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia with joint training, full US bases would have at worst created an equivalent of a cold war shell like Europe from the 60's to 90's, with Iran/Russia/Syria playing a losing hand. Yes some level of attacks would be there at first, because unlike WW2, the enemy wasn't thoroughly defeated, but a US led coalition of moderate Arab States, with Israel, would have created an economic zone of influence that extremists would lose out to in the long run.
but that's not happening in this universe, and more powerful attacks are coming shortly.