First they started with al-Qaeda, and then they bankrolled what became ISIS.
In a leaked December 2009 cable, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted that, "Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan] and other terrorist groups."
Unfortunately for Saudi Arabia, ISIS, the anti-Shia insurgency it helped to create, is now rumbling about taking over Saudi Arabia when it's done wiping out the Shias in Iraq and Syria.
ISIS is a problem that the Sunni nations in the Middle East created, and it's a problem they and they alone should have to solve.
Yes, the US has played a role in the crisis, thanks to the Bush administration waging two incredibly stupid, illegal, and destabilizing wars in the region, but that's just fuel on a fire that had already long been burning.
The strength and brutality of ISIS represents a regional conflict, not a worldwide one, and it should be treated like that.
Saudi Arabia and the other countries that have bankrolled the anti-Shia insurgency for years should be held responsible for dealing with the monster they helped to create.
And, in the wake of President Obama asking Congress for military authority to take on ISIS, those are sentiments now being echoed by a few brave lawmakers in Washington.
In an interview on CNN yesterday, Sen. Bernie Sanders said that,
"This war is a battle for the soul of Islam and it's going to have to be the Muslim countries who are stepping up. These are billionaire families all over that region. They've got to get their hands dirty. They've got to get their troops on the ground. They've got to win that war with our support. We cannot be leading the effort..."
Meanwhile, speaking about the Sunni nations in the Middle East, Congressman Alan Grayson told me on The Big Picture that, "I'm hoping that these countries will go ahead, band together, and eliminate the Sunni fundamentalist threat. But if Iraq won't defend its own territory, and if these countries won't eliminate the fundamentalist radicals in their midst, you have to wonder, why should we?"
By letting Saudi Arabia -- which has the fourth largest military budget in the world and can easily fight this fight -- by letting them and other Middle Eastern nations take the lead in fighting ISIS, the US would also be helping to weaken ISIS' message and dialogue.
It would no longer be Middle-Eastern Muslims fighting American mostly Christians.
ISIS wants the conflict against it to be viewed as a battle of civilizations. And, by increasing US involvement in the conflict, we're giving ISIS a huge victory.
Instead, we need to respond to the ISIS crisis for what it is, a regional conflict, and let it be defined as that. And let Muslims in the region deal with their own bad actors -- even if they helped create them.
This is not our fight, and the new AUMF should explicitly say so.
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