Last week President Obama admitted that his administration has not worked out a strategy on how to deal with the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a dominant force in the Middle East. However as ISIS continues its march through Syria and Iraq many in the US administration believe it is in the words of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel a threat beyond anything we have ever seen.
Predictably the neocons attacked the presidents speech. They believe the solution to any problem is more bombs and troops on the ground so they cannot understand the presidents hesitation.
Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Buck McKeon made it clear that fighting ISIS is going to cost a lot more money and will bring US forces back to Iraq for the third time. The post-Iraq post-Afghanistan peace dividend disintegrates.
ISIS is an urgent threat and a minimalist approach that depends solely on FY15 funding or pinprick strikes that leave fragile forces in Iraq and Syria to do the hard fighting is insufficient to protect our interests and guarantee our safety in time Mr. McKeon said last week.
What does this mean in practice? If the neocons have their way the Federal Reserve will print more money to finance another massive US intervention in the Middle East. In reality this means further devaluation of the US dollar which is a tax on all Americans that will hit the poorest hardest.
A new US military incursion will not end ISIS; it will provide them with the recruiting tool they most crave while draining the US treasury. Just what Osama bin Laden wanted!
McKeon and the other hawks act as if they had only recently become aware of the ISIS. Or if they noticed it they pretend US policy had nothing to do with its rise.
McKeon also said last week ISIS threat was allowed to build and fester over a period of time.
In fact US regime change policy in Syria was directly responsible for the rise of ISIS over these past three years. As journalist Eric Margolis observed recently the emergence of ISIS is the mother of all blowback. The neocons who want us to get tougher on ISIS including a US attack on Syria are the same ones who not long ago demanded that we support groups like ISIS to overthrow the Assad government in Syria. US-trained and funded moderates from the Free Syrian Army joined the Islamist militias including ISIS taking US weapons and training with them.
Three years of supporting any force that might overthrow the secular government of President Assad has produced a new monster in the Middle East that neocons insist the US must slay.
Why cant they just admit they were wrong? Why cant the interventionists just admit that their support for regime change in Syria was a terrible and tragic mistake?
If ISIS is as big a threat as they claim why cant they simply ask Assad to help out? Assad has never threatened the United States; ISIS has. Assad has been fighting ISIS and similar Islamist extremist groups for three years.
Why does the US government insist on aligning with theocracies in the Middle East? If there is anything that contradicts the US Constitution and American values it is a theocratic government. I do not believe that a majority in the Middle East wants to live under such a system so why do we keep pushing it on them? Is that what they call promoting democracy?
A lack of strategy is a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the president will finally stop listening to the neocons and interventionists whose recommendations have gotten us into this mess in the first place! Heres a strategy: just come home.
Ron Paul is a former congressman from Texas and a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute.
Last week President Obama admitted that his administration has not worked out a strategy on how to deal with the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a dominant force in the Middle East. However as ISIS continues its march through Syria and Iraq many in the US administration believe it is in the words of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel a threat beyond anything we have ever seen.
Predictably the neocons attacked the presidents speech. They believe the solution to any problem is more bombs and troops on the ground so they cannot understand the presidents hesitation.
Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Buck McKeon made it clear that fighting ISIS is going to cost a lot more money and will bring US forces back to Iraq for the third time. The post-Iraq post-Afghanistan peace dividend disintegrates.
ISIS is an urgent threat and a minimalist approach that depends solely on FY15 funding or pinprick strikes that leave fragile forces in Iraq and Syria to do the hard fighting is insufficient to protect our interests and guarantee our safety in time Mr. McKeon said last week.
What does this mean in practice? If the neocons have their way the Federal Reserve will print more money to finance another massive US intervention in the Middle East. In reality this means further devaluation of the US dollar which is a tax on all Americans that will hit the poorest hardest.
A new US military incursion will not end ISIS; it will provide them with the recruiting tool they most crave while draining the US treasury. Just what Osama bin Laden wanted!
McKeon and the other hawks act as if they had only recently become aware of the ISIS. Or if they noticed it they pretend US policy had nothing to do with its rise.
McKeon also said last week ISIS threat was allowed to build and fester over a period of time.
In fact US regime change policy in Syria was directly responsible for the rise of ISIS over these past three years. As journalist Eric Margolis observed recently the emergence of ISIS is the mother of all blowback. The neocons who want us to get tougher on ISIS including a US attack on Syria are the same ones who not long ago demanded that we support groups like ISIS to overthrow the Assad government in Syria. US-trained and funded moderates from the Free Syrian Army joined the Islamist militias including ISIS taking US weapons and training with them.
Three years of supporting any force that might overthrow the secular government of President Assad has produced a new monster in the Middle East that neocons insist the US must slay.
Why cant they just admit they were wrong? Why cant the interventionists just admit that their support for regime change in Syria was a terrible and tragic mistake?
If ISIS is as big a threat as they claim why cant they simply ask Assad to help out? Assad has never threatened the United States; ISIS has. Assad has been fighting ISIS and similar Islamist extremist groups for three years.
Why does the US government insist on aligning with theocracies in the Middle East? If there is anything that contradicts the US Constitution and American values it is a theocratic government. I do not believe that a majority in the Middle East wants to live under such a system so why do we keep pushing it on them? Is that what they call promoting democracy?
A lack of strategy is a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the president will finally stop listening to the neocons and interventionists whose recommendations have gotten us into this mess in the first place! Heres a strategy: just come home.
Ron Paul is a former congressman from Texas and a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute.
