Let's stipulate, for purposes of discussion, that ISIS came about because of US involvement in Iraq.

[brooklynite]

(personally, I think it also came about because of the Arab Spring)

You now have ISIS holding territory, acting barbarically with respect to civilians, and now launching a terrorist attack abroad.

What do you do?

[EdwardBernays]

1. ISIS came about...

...because of al Qaeda, which came about because of the Muslim Brotherhood, which came about because of corrupt British rule in Egypt.

al Qaeda also came about, because of Western intervention in Afghanistan, and the US' Bitter Lake oil deal deal with Saudi Arabia, which set up the growth of Wahhabism.

As for what to do, well, what you can't do is kill them all. Start there and find a meaningful solution.

[EdwardBernays]

8. ???

I said you CAN'T kill them all...?

And btw., the US has EASILY killed or helped kill as many people as Pol Pot - actually much much more.

Iran/Iraq war: 1M Iranians killed
Guatemala: 200,000
Iraq: 150,000
El Salvador : 60,000+
Firebombing cities in Japan: 300,000 - 900,000

Heck the Firebombing of Dresden killed about 25,000 people.

Of course the CIA also has a LONG history of creating secret police in countries to help them stop democracy from overthrowing their puppets, like in Haiti and Iran. The CIA created and US funded and trained Iranian secret police SAVAK tortured and killed many 10s of thousands of Iranians... typical CIA crap.

Some estimates for CIA deaths:

'The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an “American Holocaust.”'

http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-timeline-of-cia-atrocities/5348804

By comparison, Pol Pot killed 1.5million people.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

10. Read that wrong. Deleted.

[EX500rider]

30. I wouldn't trust Global Research if they said the sky was blue..

............the site has a strong undercurrent of reality warping throughout its pages. Its view of science, the economy and geopolitics seems to be broadly conspiracist. It's no surprise then that the site has long become a magnet for radicals, fringe figures and whacko elements from the left in general.
Globalresearch.ca may be best described as the moonbat equivalent to WorldNetDaily. Whenever someone makes a remarkable claim and cites Globalresearch, they are almost certainly wrong.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Globalresearch.ca

[EdwardBernays]

43. I know

I wouldn't trust them as a primary source either...

But look you can EASILY start digging into the numbers and check them for yourself... 6 million is probably not much of a stretch.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

2. "What do you do?"

The West Has had an illustrious career "doing" whatever it has wanted to in the Mid East: drawing the boundaries of today's Middle East countries, deposing elected governments in favour of tyrants, funding monarchies...etc.

It has seen its share if blowback from this.

Possibly, anything it does now will have repercussions that are unknowable in the grand scheme.

We should choose wisely.

[msongs]

25. historic boundaries drawn over and over by local tyrants, monarchies, etc. nothing changes nt

[KingCharlemagne]

4. seek a negotiated settlement, the same way most armed conflicts

throughout history have been resolved.

[Hortensis]

13. With ISIS? LOL.

I'm all for negotiated settlements, King, but ISIS's goal is the end of the world, the apocalypse -- soon, with hell fire to follow for everyone on the planet who does not worship their god in their narrow, approved way.

They will be defeated militarily because they have to be. They won't allow anything else.

[KingCharlemagne]

16. LOL - they will be defeated militarily? Yeah right and

What surrender procedures have been or will be used?

Please proceed.

[Hortensis]

19. I imagine some weak sisters will surrender. Most will not.

But if you imagine that none will surrender, how to you imagine they will negotiate?

This is ISIS's map of regions they intend to incorporate into the caliphate by 2020 (5 years from now). Insane it may look, but they think they are helping their god achieve this. We're on Satan's side, of course, which means we lose.

[KingCharlemagne]

28. another word for the map of the Caliphate with which Western secularists

might be more comfortable is 'sphere of influence,' a concept realpolitikers like Brzezinski and Kissinger would probably readily embrace.

On a positive note, the EU's Greece and Spain problems would be gone!

[Hortensis]

32. LOL. I was thinking the same just yesterday

when I was looking at this map.

[marions ghost]

34. where to begin...

oh never mind.

[melman]

14. A negotiated settlement with ISIS?

I don't think ISIS are really interested in negotiating.

[KingCharlemagne]

17. Has anyone tried to reach out? - nt

[Hortensis]

23. Shoot! I forgot to tell the U.N. to just reach out.

Someone else please tell me they did?

I actually have a lot of respect for ISIS, King, as much as I can have for incredibly vicious religious extremists who make most others look positively moderate in comparison. They are not misunderstood. They know what they are doing and are completely committed to bringing about the apocalypse for their god.

Kind of like Mitt Romney in their commitment, only he's not into beheading anyone who wanders onto his estates and those he would have taken from his neighbors. (Yet another kind word from me for the Mormons -- their end times, every bit as close as ISIS's, do not require beheadings.)

[KingCharlemagne]

26. Leaving aside your contemptuous sarcasm, armed hostilities

Usually conclude by one of two means: negotiated settlement or significant attrition of the enemy's ability to maintain organized resistance. We used the latter in the Civil War and World Wars. We tried the former in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. So what is the military end game here?

[Hortensis]

27. Preservation of threatened peoples. And it was amused sarcasm.

[KingCharlemagne]

31. I'm not getting your point. how will this end militarily, by negotiation or by

Attrition?

[Hortensis]

41. Oh, I see what you mean. An actual end.

No, I don't see that either, of course, KingCharlemagne. A big part of their current draw is reportedly their tremendous success, though. People want to be part of something very big and successful. Take success from them, and at least the rate of signups will hopefully slow down dramatically. Forcing al-Quaeda to spend all its depleted energy hiding and trying to stay alive wasn't an end, but it was a solution for a while. Comparatively.

When one thinks of what global warming, rivers running dry, and lack of demand for oil will do to the Middle East, leaving all other problems aside, how can any expect anything but an acceleration of misdirected rage and despair turned to hate?

Do you know that ISIS is at least theoretically capable of purchasing simple nuclear bombs and setting them off from ships off our coasts, and/or a more ambitious plan of setting off high-altitude nukes over the U.S., that could wipe out part or all of our electronic grid? The money and technology are both available to ISIS. I don't worry about the worst case, because it's too much to worry about, and a more limited attack is far more likely to occur and still cripple a large region dreadfully, but the official estimate presented to Congress is that a worst-case coast-to-coast EMP that wiped out 100% of our grid would result in the death of 90% of our population by the end of one year. I'd choose a figure for a more limited attack, such as one that took down the eastern grid, but I don't have one. It'd be huge, though.

Serious stuff. Our grid is attacked daily. It is expected by virtually all experts that eventually an attack of enough size to cause suffering and death in at least one region will succeed. This is only one type of threat and ISIS only one of the enemies so extreme that we believe they are capable of it.

[Aerows]

44. Is this a spoof?

[jeff47]

5. Nothing.

To expand on that, nothing directly.

What's going on is a centuries-old battle between rival tribes, exacerbated by European colonialism and its aftermath. "Fixing" the real problem requires redrawing the borders of the Middle East so that the borders align with tribal identity. In other words, the way countries form naturally.

We can't do that.

First, a large chunk of Iraq should be in Iran. We can't do that, because it will piss off allies like Saudi Arabia, as well as piss off the neocons in the US.

Second, another large chunk of Iraq should be Kurdistan. We can't do that, because it will cause a civil war in Turkey. Their significant Kurdish population would try to secede to join Kurdistan.

Third, Israel. If we start helping people in the region "get their own country", we have a huge Palestinian problem. And Netanyahu and company are never going to support a new Palestinian state.

Lastly, if we "draw the lines", then many groups in the Middle East will be enraged that we drew the lines "wrong". Even if we draw them via popular vote.

Meanwhile, any large-scale, direct, violent intervention will create more supporters for ISIS.

So I'd do nothing directly. The region will have to create its own stability.

Indirectly, we should use diplomacy and cash to encourage the formation of that stability. Also, we should use intelligence agencies and extremely rare, extremely targeted strikes (ie. bin Laden raid) to kill, capture or render ineffective the actual terrorists.

[Hortensis]

15. Agree.

Of course, in addition to the long list of disasters ongoing in the Middle East, the House of Saud could come down any day, and with it Saudi Arabia's centralized government, destroying a great deal of what stability is left in the region -- to the great benefit of ISIS.

[joshcryer]

42. This is sensible.

But as soon as, say, a Kurdish town gets surrounded it's more difficult than, as Maher says, bring out the popcorn.

It's easy enough to say do nothing, but humans are fallible, even with the best intentions.

And people can claim all day and night that helping allies over there is just making it worse, I don't agree with that. ISIS is unsustainable, and certainly not powerful enough to cause everything to just "work out." They are just some 25k murderous raiders.

[Wilms]

6. A few ideas that might be helpful.

Treat energy independence as though our lives depended on it.

Stop overthrowing governments. (We came, we saw, we killed...and unleashed tens of thousands of deaths is an awful, awful foreign policy.)

Confront Fox News.

Stop electing neo-cons and corporatists.

[GummyBearz]

7. I like it

Especially the energy independence. We are quite close to achieving that, even with the government subsidizing oil companies massively. Get that under control, then just don't renew ties with the Saudis... we don't have to directly offend them, just let the ties fade away. If it can be shown then that they are funding terrorism, we treat them like Iran has been treated... sanctions, etc. And for god sake if one more saudi prince is caught smuggling a thousand pounds of controlled substances DONT GIVE HIM DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

[bklyncowgirl]

22. I totally agree with you especially re energy independence and the Saudis.

Why do we treat this country who are the chief exporters of radical theology, terrorism and terrorists like they are our friends? The answer is oil.

Regime change in the Middle East was a bad idea going way back to the days when the CIA overthrew a democratically elected government in Iran and put in the Shah. As bad as Saddam Hussein was he was a whole hell of a lot better than the chaos and sectarian violence which filled his void.

I think that Obama knew that trying to overthrow Khadafy and Assad was a bad idea but he got pushed into it by those who wanted him to take a stronger stand. Assad's use of chemical weapons made it impossible for him to say no. What bothers me is that Hillary Clinton was one of the strongest voices in favor of these policies.

Finally, we were a huge part of causing this mess. We are morally impelled to help clean it up. Isis has to be wiped out but how to do that without the active involvement of the Sunni Arab world is a real conundrum. The best I can think of is to stop their money flow, bombing oil caravans is a good start but going after the people who are funding them would be better but once again that brings us to the Saudis.

[Rex]

9. Well you don't create more groups of orphaned children, so that they don't grow up and join ISIS.

As for ISIS, good question. What do you do with a monster you created and cannot control? One that is like a hydra?

[99th_Monkey]

11. It wasn't JUST the invasion and occupation, but HOW it was bungled and mishandled

A) we completely disbanded the entire Iraq military, rendering them all unemployed, with nothing
to do except resist the occupation underground and/or join up with forces determined to undermine
the occupation. These were already trained military people.

B) when we left Iraq, we just simply abandoned fully functioning military armaments, tanks, humvees,
leaving them for AQ & ISIS to deploy them against US forces and/or against our allies in the area.

There are many other ways Bush & Co screwed up the occupation -- a mistake in the first place, made
much much worse by stupid decisions in the WH resulting in chaos on the ground in Iraq; such as:
* aggressively torturing 'suspected terrorists' most of whom were innocents caught up in the chaos
* failing to rebuild the infrastructure, schools, housing, etc. we destroyed in the invasion, and instead
having the money appropriated for that syphoned off by corrupt contractors.

these are just a few examples, but I felt a need to at least give a few, rather than simply state my
headlined assertion.

[Rex]

18. If Bush and Cheney would have negotiated with the Taliban instead of threatening them

9/11 might not have ever happened. The 'carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs' threat was so incredibly assine that it seems they were already gearing up for war in the ME. Even before 9/11. And of course they ignored all the warnings leading up to 9/11.

Most of us that actually care and pay attention, could write a book on the abuses of power by the BFEE.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Wave a flag and sing God Bless America? Demand that we "DO something"?

See Iraq, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Libya, Chile, etc where we DID something.

[randome]

20. Prop up Assad so he can take out ISIL.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/what-to-do-about-isis

I don't know what the precise best policies here are. But I do have a clear idea of several of the building blocks. The first recalls something I said a few weeks ago, which is that it is folly to be actively engaged against both sides in a civil war, which is effectively what we are now doing. Such a policy may have a cynical logic when you have two hostile entities which you want to see wear each other down and pulverize each other - much as we did during the Iran-Iraq War in 1980s. That is not the current situation. The Assad regime, while bloody, does not in any way pose an immediate threat to the United States.

We need to redefine our Syria policy around the goal of the physical elimination of ISIS as a territorial entity and the physical destruction of its top leaders. If that means accepting the continuance of Assad family rule in at least rump Syria than we need to accept that - even though he's backed by regional adversaries Russia and Iran. Again, how serious are we about eliminating ISIS? I'd say not very serious if we're still hung up on Assad.

It's a bitter pill to swallow but...
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Yavin4]

38. "accepting the continuance of Assad family rule in at least rump Syria than we need to accept that"

Precisely. Strong arm dictators in the Middle East are our best, and truly only, defense against extremism.

[karynnj]

21. Why stipulate anything about the origin?

It is hard not to fault Bremer disbanding the Baathist members of the army. It is also hard not fault Maliki from gradually eliminating all power to the Sunnis. Had these things not existed -- and if Assad had responded to the Arab spring by reforming at least some things in his government - rather than responding brutally, then ISIS might not have had the fertile ground - and there would have been more Sunni Iraqis and Syrians with some power, who would have spoken and acted against these terrorists before they gained the power over Sunni cities.

What to do now - it seems it is hard to beat what Obama is already doing. It is striking that many - Democratic and Republican - speak of doing things that he is ALREADY doing without saying that is the case.

1) He has a 60 person coalition that includes many Arab nations in the region -- and our military is deconfliting with Iran, Syria and Russia as we strike ISIS positions.
2) He has made clear that it can't work longterm if it is US/western troops on the ground. ( This took me back to what many experts said in the 9 (/) hearings the SFRC did in 2009 on Afghanistan before Obama went with the surge recommended by Gates, Petraeous, McChrystal and Clinton.)
3) He has spoken of the need for a political solution to the Syrian civil war. The G20 today endorsed the Vienna agreement that was announced Saturday.
4) He spoke today of the fact that the US and other countries have worked hard sharing intelligence to try to identify any attacks before they happen. It is clear that many have been averted, but also clear that as long as people are willing to die for a cause - there will be attacks that happen. The best that can be done is learn from them and to not let them change who we are.

Looking at all these things - I really do not see what could be done that is better.

[bklyncowgirl]

24. I think however that somehow, with all of this being done, Obama is losing the info wars.

All of this has to be said loudly and often. Republicans offer easy solutions that in the end would be disastrous.

[think]

29. This is a problem that requires the countries in the middle east to be involved with.

Bernie is correct. This is their fight to take the lead on.

American can assist but it's not going to get better if we just go in and bomb everything. But if we put troops in we're there indefinitely.

At the heart of this is our long history of propping up dictators for oil. The people of those countries don't want our control or our manipulation of their govt and lives just as Americans would not stand for it if anyone tried to do the same to America.

That's what we've been doing for decades. It's great for the MIC and oil companies. Not so much for our enlisted men & women and the American tax payer.

[Yavin4]

37. Exactly. Only Middle East nations can truly solve this.

Our direct involvement only makes matters worse.

[Marr]

33. Get off oil as rapidly as possible, and treat the Middle East generally like the Soviet Union during

the Cold War. That is, aim to simply contain it and fund/supply/assist with intel any internal groups and secular governments willing to fight ISIS, including Assad.

[Yavin4]

36. "Get off oil as rapidly as possible" -- not a credible solution.

It's not just us that depend on Middle East oil. It's the entire planet. We can go cold turkey without destroying the global economy.

[Yavin4]

35. Work with the "stable" nations in the region and have them quell ISIS

Yes, that includes Iran. Only the nations in the Middle East can solve this crisis. Too many of them bury their heads in the sand and build luxury hotels and stadiums when they should be using their immense resources to build up the entire region economically and combat extremism. Said extremism threatens them more than us.

[restorefreedom]

39. we can't do much without nearly complete worldwide support

or it will be seen as another us invasion like iraq was. the countries nearest the violence, especially the ones with armies and resources (hint to turkey and SA) have to step up and lead this effort. it has to be like the pushback in iraq during iraq 1. almost no one agreed that going into kuwait was an ok thing to do, and the world worked together. it has to be that way now.

[Warren DeMontague]

40. war is sometimes necessary. Part of our problem is, we do a crap job with nation building.

I do think questions about the wisdom of invading Iraq - and whether what we are seeing now is part and parcel of the fallout are legit (i think it is)... However, we dont have that hitler-killing time machine, so shoulda woulda couldas are useless in terms of where we go now.

And I think some sort of military response may end up being inevitable with ISIS. So.. Beyond that point? If we take out the leadership, what then? How do we avoid merely leaving a situation where their even worse younger cousins take power and start the same shit in 10 years?

I dont know, but I suspect it involves something like the Marshall plan in europe (NOT to be confused with the Bush admin. Cheap and easy method of giving duffel bags of cash to contractors to bribe whoever) serious bulding of infrastructure, clean water, food, education, health care... Not taking out a few "bad guys" then handing the reins over to some hastily picked "provisional authority" and saying "good luck. See ya!"

You know, if it was me, I'd say throw in some choice Colorado weed, 4k tvs, Neil degrasse tyson videos and even some porn or at least a skinemax subscription. Try and caaaaaaalm some people down.