Is an ISIS Victory an Unmitigated Disaster?

The standard wisdom, in the face of the Sunni insurrection in Iraq, is “something must be done”. Which begs the question – why?

In answer, chickenhawks will trot out the usual litany of threats to America. The armchair generals will intone that we have to fight “them” over there, so we won’t have to fight “them” over here. Lip-service will be paid to humanitarian issues – “top this” stories of atrocities to women will make make the talk-show rounds. And mutterings about the threat to America’s petroleum supply will be muttered.

But let’s take a step back and look at what is really going on.

The Middle East is a political earthquake zone. And as everyone, who lives in an earthquake zone, knows there is nothing you can do to stop the earthquake. You’re best strategy is to accept its inevitably and build your life around that fact.

Determined, fanatical and deadly – but not the Third Reich.

Right now ISIS is in the halcyon days of fighting. Let’s assume they create their Sunni paradise in Iraq – even a new caliphate stretching across the region –  then they will have something they will have to defend and manage. Commentators might say Islamic fundamentalists don’t care about a modern state. To them electricity and running water are distractions; stone-age existence is just fine – look at Afghanistan.

But there’s a difference. Afghanistan has never been a “modern” country. But the Iraqis have had a bite of the apple. It will be harder to put that genie back in the bottle. ISIS will have to make a choice. They can either maintain infrastructure, or let it go to hell in a hand-basket and be ever vigilant against unrest. Either way it’s a pain in an insurrectionist’s ass. And it takes away from focussing on the Great Satan.

The argument that the creation of a terrorist state will engender another 9/11 makes no sense. The planning for 9/11 took place in Afghanistan, but it could just as well have taken place in Pakistan, or Indonesia, or a private house in Yemen. The damage done on 9/11 was huge, but the method was decidedly small. A total of 19 men on four planes.

Let’s spend the money on this. That will make the conservatives happy.

We already spend $55 billion on Homeland Security. Instead of spending additional trillions fighting wars abroad, why not spend some more at home, identifying people who have overstayed their visa – like the 9/11 hijackers?. If we beef up border security it will also aid in stanching the flow of illegal immigrants. That will win conservative support.

As for the petroleum threat, if Middle Eastern oil supplies are disrupted (and why would they be – terrorists need to eat) it will only give us greater incentive to develop our own supplies. There may even be a consensus that renewables get  a serious look. Which will make the liberals hot to trot.

There has been a divide in American foreign policy since Teddy Roosevelt sent the Navy on a “look at mine” circumnavigation. On one side stand the isolationists, who believe in “fortress America” safe behind ocean barriers. On the other side stand the hawks, eager to throw American military might at any and all threats to America – real or imagined.

Some times the isolationists have been in the ascent – especially after the Vietnam War. But the hawks rely on our short memories to get us involved in overseas military adventurism. Now they are throwing the “terrorist threat” in our face.

If it seems a familiar plaint, it is because we have heard it before. We were warned that communists were going to eat our lunch. Children were drilled in cowering under their desks. Congressional committees were smoking out communists at the highest levels. And it culminated in expensive, bloody and pointless wars in Southeast Asia.

Let’s not do Vietnam again.

Now we are warned about the inexorable spread of fundamentalist Islam, unless we do the above mentioned “something”. We are told these people are too determined, fanatical, too uncivilized, to be stopped unless bombed. Well we bombed the hell out of Vietnam (and Cambodia and Laos for good measure) and look what that got us.

Condaleeza Rice – who by all accounts is extremely smart, analytical and knowledgeable – was so swept up by Saddam’s existential threat, that she spoke of smoking guns being mushroom clouds. Which sounded wise until the Emperor was discovered to be nude.

And forget the appeasement argument. There is no Hitler in the Middle East. Wannabes sure. But ISIS in no Nazi Germany – no matter how much cast-off American materiel they capture.

They hate us because we are there – so why don’t we just leave?