So you just let ISIS take over Iraq/Syria/Lebanon and wherever else they can spread, and watch them commit crimes against humanity until they bump into a regional power that can maybe stop them? That seems like a pretty bad option. I’m sure you can recall but they also unleashed a wave of terror in Europe and the US at the same time(maybe irrelevant).
What’s the end game of isolationism for the US and the World in this scenario?
You don’t think ISIS and AQ are committed to forever war?
Good job creating a strawman and then beating him to death. You must have picked up that move from Pressure.
I have never once argued for isolationism or just letting shyt happen. Not once. But the fact that proponents of "ultraviolence as the only solution" continuously turn to that caricature of anyone who disagrees with them demonstrates to me how little you've actually engaged with these issues.
If you've been shown that your technique for "dealing" with a problem is having a horrific impact on people and has very often led to some really shytty results, then you don't give up on dealing with the problem,
you start looking for another way.
As I pointed out already, advocates for ultraviolence continuously fall back on tunnel-vision compartmentalization when discussing their policies. You jumped back to "But we needed to do this to Isis!" while completely ignoring the entire history of doing such things had led to Isis in the first place. It's like punching a guy in the face, shooting him when he pulls a knife, and then arguing that the knife left you with no options...ignoring that his friend is going to pull his own gun next and you'll shoot him too, which causes that friend's son to grow up to try to get revenge by killing your friend, and so on all because you were walking around punching people. That doesn't at any point excuse the other fukkheads who are pulling knives and guns because they're wrong too, but trying to ground the entire dispute in one moment in the middle of the conflict while ignoring everything that led up to it and all the downstream consequences that will result from it is.......exactly how we got here in the first place.
The United States of America are a massive driver in promoting a continuous cycle of violence that leads to immense suffering for millions of people who themselves had little to no personal agency in that violence coming about. Russia has also been a major driver in promoting said violence. Saudi Arabia and other radical Islamicists have also been major drivers in that cycle. Do you expect the Russians or the Islamicists to be the ones to intervene and break the cycle any time soon? If not, then how the fukk do you envision a future of anything other than forever war? We go by your philosophy and the "good actors" will have zero say in choosing the future of the world, because so long as the "bad guys" want war to continue forever, you'll happily oblige.
What are the alternatives? Just as an example, at one point in the conflict one group suggested the following as a start:
- Stop U.S. bombing in Iraq to prevent bloodshed, instability and the accumulation of grievances that contribute to the global justification for the Islamic State’s existence among its supporters.
- Provide robust humanitarian assistance to those who are fleeing the violence.
- Engage with the UN, all Iraqi political and religious leaders, and others in the international community on diplomatic efforts for a lasting political solution for Iraq. Ensure a significantly more inclusive Iraqi government along with substantive programs of social reconciliation to interrupt the flow and perhaps peel-back some of the persons joining the Islamic State.
- Work for a political settlement to the crisis in Syria. The conflicts in Iraq and Syria are intricately connected and should be addressed holistically. Return to the Geneva peace process for a negotiated settlement to the civil war in Syria and expand the agenda to include regional peace and stability. Ensure Iran’s full participation in the process.
- Support community-based nonviolent resistance strategies to transform the conflict and meet the deeper need and grievances of all parties. For example, experts have suggested strategies such as parallel institutions, dispersed disruptions, and economic non-cooperation.
- Strengthen financial sanctions against armed actors in the region. For example, disrupting the Islamic State’s $3 million/day oil revenue from the underground market would go a long way toward blunting violence.
- Bring in and significantly invest in professionally trained unarmed civilian protection organizations to assist and offer some buffer for displaced persons and refugees, both for this conflict in collaboration with Iraqi’s and for future conflicts.
- Call for and uphold an arms embargo on all parties to the conflict. U.S. arms and military assistance to the government forces and ethnic militias in Iraq, in addition to arming Syrian rebel groups, have only fueled the carnage, in part due to weapons intended for one group being taken and used by others. All armed parties have been accused of committing gross violations of human rights. Along with Russia, work with key regional players such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait to take independent initiatives and meaningful steps towards an arms embargo on all parties in the conflict.
- Support Iraqi civil society efforts to build peace, reconciliation, and accountability at the community level. Deep sectarian and ethnic divisions have long been exacerbated by various factors, including the U.S. military intervention in 2003. Sustainable peace will require peacebuilding and reconciliation efforts from the ground up.
A few of those strategies were attempted in pathetic, insufficient manner, others were sabotaged by the obvious hypocrisy of the USA in pushing for actions that it was unwilling to follow itself and others were never even seriously tried. If we had spent the last 20 years putting the effort and funding into those things that we put into the Iraq War, Isis would never have formed in the first place and I have little doubt the region would be better off today than it is now. But we NEVER devote the national resources to peace that we're willing to devote to war.
Obviously the full scope of non-military actions necessary to resolve global conflicts and protect the victims of violence are complex and can't be covered fully in a message board post just like the actual US strategy for violently dealing with Isis is never spelled out in any detail here. But if you are interested in introductions to the issues, you can start with
Rethinking Violence: States and Non-State Actors in Conflict and
Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Of course due to the limited attention given to the field it still remains underdeveloped compared to violent options. If the USA changed directions and devoted 21 entire universities to studying the promotion of peace just like it currently devotes 21 universities to studying and training people for war, and if it budgeted over $800 billion every year to funding pro-peace efforts just like it currently devotes over $800 billion every year to funding the military-industrial complex, I have no doubt both knowledge and impact of said work would rapidly overtake our horrifically underachieving war machine, which somehow still fails to produce the desired results in conflict after conflict even though it's had 100s of years of a head start in figuring this shyt out.
