Yes, the U.S. military can be amazingly successful at times. But in these wars, there will be no victory. Just slow bleeding -- of U.S. men and materiel and Americans' sense of themselves as a moral people.
Does that mean that ISIS' barbarities should be ignored? Of course not. Their medieval mentality and cruelties and desire to force conversions on a mass scale to re-establish the Islamic caliphate -- all these must be confronted. Right now, the default mode of that reaction is violence (not that far removed from the extreme wars of The Crusades). The U.S. should be seeking more creative ways, involving larger alliances, and economic and political sanctions, to build a stronger moral/diplomatic/economic/political shield against ISIS. It may not ultimately work, but it can't hurt and might actually help repel the advances of this group of cutthroats.
7. WISE ADVICE
As the old colonial system broke apart after World War II, the active principle for Western countries was "never fight a war on the landmass of Asia." The new warning should be "never fight a war in the Middle East." In that roiling, unstable part of the world, the social and political infrastructures are infinitely complex, virtually impossible for outsiders to understand, easy to get bogged down in the tribal, clan, religious miasmas, with constantly shifting alliances. In short, it's easy to use missiles and bombs from thousands of feet in the air, but actually getting on the ground and trying to decipher the shadowy social/political rules and subrosa ways of doing business is the very definition of ill-advised policy. Has America learned nothing from its defeats in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan (lessons already learned by the Brits and the Russians in Afghanistan)?
As the U.S. gets bogged down in these new Mideast wars, it will spend down its treasury, its aging infrastructure will continue to deteriorate, the economy will collapse once again, the environment will continue to be degraded, the results of climate change will wreak more havoc on cash-starved localities, the gap between the uber-wealthy and the rest of us will grow larger, social revolution will become more necessary and real in the streets, etc.
8. ELECTORAL FALLOUT
It may turn out that the American Left will find itself joining forces, at least temporarily, with the rightist Rand Paulites to demand up-or-down votes on use of military force in Syria/Iraq.
Normally, the ruling party in power can count on the polity rallying around the flag and the troops doing the fighting. But whether the U.S. citizenry will continue to support these newest wars in the Middle East is unclear. It's not even clear which political party is "in power" -- the one that controls the White House? the one that controls the House? -- or which military policies the populace might support: boots on the ground? drone and air force bombing??
My guess as I write this in early October is that the GOP is gaining traction using ISIS ("the terrorists are coming!") to generate fear and anxiety, and that may be enough to tilt the midterm elections in their direction. The Democrats are split on the advisability of Obama's war policies, and may not react in enough time (we're less than a month away from election day) to win enough victories.
Needless to say, if the Hard Right continues to dominate the House, and becomes the majority in the Senate, the country is in for a catastrophic, post-election hard landing in every area imaginable, from economics to judicial appointments (especially to the Supreme Court) to educational slidebacks to fundamentalism and authoritarianism making massive gains in the public arena.
9. A HUMUNGOUS GAMBLE
Obama, it seems to me, is gambling that the good patriotic zeal of finally hitting back at somebody will accrue to the benefit of the Democrats in the midterm elections in November. But I'm not sure Obama can pull it off, hence the gloomy assessments above. Especially if Turkey and then NATO get sucked into the larger war, and Russia feels compelled actively to join the other side. WW3, anyone?
If the Syria/Iraq campaign is still going on in stasis in 2015 and the following year, and is viewed by the U.S. population as "Obama's War," stalemated and unwinnable, the Democrats may pay a high price at the polls in 2016, losing the White House and any hope for real traction in the years following.
10. WHAT CAN BE DONE?
What the U.S. needs is a full-scale social/political revolution, but though the need is certainly there, the "objective conditions" don't seem to be in forceful play. This is true even as it's becoming more obvious that we are moving slowly, incrementally toward a revolutionary tipping point.
Less than a month before Election Day, there doesn't seem to be much direction and passion among the liberal/progressive left. Which means that the Democrats' GOTV campaign will amount to little more than reducing the electoral damage rather than offering viable, creative, populist-Democratic alternatives.
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