Or, lest we be accused of defeatism, consider the best case: those endlessly fortified and reinforced American forces wipe the floor with ISIS and just maybe manage to engineer the toppling of Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime as well. It's V-Day in the Middle East! And then what? What happens the day after? When and to whom do American troops turn over power?
* The Kurds? That's a nonstarter for Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, all countries with significant Kurdish minorities.
* The Saudis? Don't count on it. They're busy bombing Houthi Shias in Yemen (with U.S.-supplied ordnance) and grappling with the diversification of their oil-based economy in a world in which fossil fuels are struggling.
* Russia? Fat chance. Bombing "terrorists"? Yes. Propping up an autocratic client to secure basing rights? Sure. Temporary transactional alliances of convenience in the region? Absolutely. But long-term nation-building in the heart of the Middle East? It's just not the style of Vladimir Putin's Russia, a country with its own shaky petro-economy.
* So maybe leave Assad in power and turn the country back over to what's left of his minority, Alawite-dominated regime? That, undoubtedly, is the road to hell. After all, it was his murderous, barrel-bombing, child-gassing acts that all but caused the civil war in the first place. You can be sure that, sooner or later, Syria's majority Sunni population and its separatist Kurds would simply rebel again, while (as the last 15 years should have taught us) an even uglier set of extremists rose to the surface.
Keep in mind as well that, when it comes to the U.S. military, the Iraqi and Afghan "surges" of 2007 and 2009 offered proof positive that more ground troops aren't a cure-all in such situations. They are a formula for expending prodigious amounts of money and significant amounts of blood, while only further alienating local populations. Meanwhile, unleashing manned and drone aircraft strikes, which occasionally kill large numbers of civilians, only add to the ISIS narrative.
Every mass casualty civilian bombing or drone strike incident just detracts further from American regional credibility. While both air strikes and artillery barrages may hasten the offensive progress of America's Kurdish, Iraqi, and Syrian allies, that benefit needs to be weighed against the moral and propaganda costs of those dead women and children. For proof, see the errant bombing strike on an apartment building in Mosul last month. After all, those hundred-plus civilians are just as dead as Assad's recent victims and just as many angry, grieving family members and friends have been left behind.
In other words, any of the familiar U.S. strategies, including focusing all efforts on ISIS or toppling Assad, or a bit of both, won't add up to a real policy for the region. No matter how the Syrian civil war shakes out, Washington will need a genuine "what next" plan. Unfortunately, if the chosen course predictably relies heavily on the military lever to shape Syria's shattered society, America's presence and actions will only (as in the past) aggravate the crisis and help rejuvenate its many adversaries.
"The Blessed Ban"
The Trump administration's proposed "travel ban" quickly became fodder for left-versus-right vitriol in the U.S. Here's a rundown on what it's likely to mean when it comes to foreign policy and the "next" war. First, soaring domestic fears over jihadi terror attacks in this country and the possible role of migrants and refugees in stoking them represent a potentially catastrophic over-reaction to a modest threat. Annually, from 2005 to 2015, terrorists killed an average of just seven Americans on U.S. soil. You are approximately 18,000 times more likely to die in some sort of accident than from such an attack. In addition, according to a study by the conservative Cato Institute, from 1975 to 2015 citizens of the countries included in Trump's first ban (including Iraq and Syria) killed precisely zero people in the United States. Nor has any refugee conducted a fatal domestic attack here. Finally, despite candidate and President Trump's calls for "extreme vetting" of Muslim refugees, the government already has a complex, two-year vetting process for such refugees which is remarkably "extreme."
Those are the facts. What truly matters, however, is the effect of such a ban on the war of ideas in the Middle East. In short, it's manna from heaven for ISIS's storyline in which Americans are alleged to hate all Muslims. It tells you everything you need to know that, within days of the administration's announcement of its first ban, ISIS had taken to labeling it "blessed," just as al-Qaeda once extolled George W. Bush's 2003 "blessed invasion" of Iraq. Even Senator John McCain, a well-known hawk, worried that Trump's executive order would "probably give ISIS some more propaganda."
Remember, while ISIS loves to claim responsibility for every attack in the West perpetrated by lost, disenfranchised, identity-seeking extremist youths, that doesn't mean the organization actually directs them. The vast majority of these killers are self-radicalized citizens, not refugees or immigrants. One of the most effective -- and tragic -- ways to lose this war is to prove the jihadis right.
The Hypocrisy Trap
Another way to feed the ISIS narrative is to bolster perceptions of diplomatic insincerity. Americans tend to be some of the least self-aware citizens on the planet. (Is it a coincidence that ours is about the only population left still questioning the existence of climate change?) Among the rare things that Democrats and Republicans agree on, however, is that America is a perennial force for good, in fact the force for good on Earth. As it happens, the rest of the world begs to differ. In Gallup global polls, the United States has, in fact, been identified as the number one threat to world peace! However uncomfortable that may be, it matters.
One reason many Middle Easterners, in particular, believe this to be so stems from Washington's longstanding support for regional autocrats. In fiscal year 2017, Egypt's military dictator and Jordan's king will receive $1.46 and $1 billion respectively in U.S. foreign aid -- nearly 7% of its total assistance budget. After leading a coup to overturn Egypt's elected government, General Sisi was officially persona non grata in the White House (though President Obama reinstated $1.3 billion in military aid in 2015). Sisi's recent visit to the Trump White House changed all that as, in a joint press conference, the president swore that he was "very much behind" Egypt and that Sisi himself had "done a fantastic job." In another indicator of future policy, the State Department dropped existing human rights conditions for the multibillion-dollar sale of F-16s to Bahrain's monarchy. All of this might be of mild interest, if it weren't for the way it bolstered ISIS claims that democracy is just an "idol," and the democratic process a fraud that American presidents simply ignore.
Then there's Israel, already the object of deep hatred in the region, and now clearly about to receive a blank check of support from the Trump administration. The role that Israeli leaders already play in American domestic politics is certainly striking to Arab audiences. Consider how unprecedented it was in 2015 to see Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticize a sitting president before a joint session of Congress in an Israeli election year and receive multiple, bipartisan standing ovations. Even so, none of this prevented the Obama administration, domestically labeled "weak on Israel," from negotiating a record $38 billion military aid deal with that country.
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