Perspective: What to do About ISIS

President Obama ran for office on the premise that he would end the war in Iraq as soon as possible, and he withdrew all US troops in 2011. This is first time in modern history that we left no troops behind to help stabilize and revitalize a country we invaded. We still have troops in Germany, Japan and Korea. Now, ISIS, a rag tag bunch of terrorists in pick-up trucks, routed the Iraq army and took control of a chunk of Iraq the size of Maryland. Worse the Iraq army left behind substantial quantities of US supplied armament which was captured by ISIS.

Everyone knew that Obama’s plan for Iraq would fail, because we had seen this movie before. There has not been a plausible Arabian army in modern history. We’ve seen the Israeli army decimate Arabian armies time after time over the past sixty years, regardless of the country of origin, and we have seen the US rout the Iraq’s army in Dessert Storm in 100 hours, and then in 2003 our army chased the lauded Iraq Republican Guard to Baghdad in three months, and dug Saddam Hussein out of his hole in the ground a few months later.

What is especially poignant about this disaster is to recall those happy Iraqi voters in 2005, including females, waving their ink stained fingers in the air as they celebrated their first democratic vote. It is sad for us also especially after we invested thousands of lives, a trillion dollars or more in military equipment and a decade to create a democracy in Iraq.

Now, despite the miserable and unreliable performance of Arabian armies our President wants us to believe a coalition of Arabic armies will be able to destroy ISIS in three years with little if any US leadership and no support on the ground. It is obvious that our top military leaders do not believe this can be accomplished at all, let alone in three years, and neither should we.


None of the plans for the removal of ISIS are attractive, so what can realistically be done? There are only two courses, and each will take courage.

1. Send the US army back to Iraq to lead the Iraq army in a battle to destroy ISIS in Iraq. Include General Petraeus who could work with the Sunnis as he did during the surge. With the troops in place, this can be accomplished in less than six month. When this objective is accomplished, leave a US force of 20,000 troops to keep the Iraq army strong, and to reinforce their resolve to keep ISIS or any other Al Qaeda group from re-invading Iraq.

2. If we do not have the courage to do this, then we should walk away from the Middle East altogether. The US does not need any oil or gas from the Middle-East, but China definitely does and probably so does Russia. Preserving peace in the region is paramount for them if they want to protect their supplies of oil and gas. So, the US should call a meeting with the top leader of China and Putin of Russia and state clearly these principles:

• The Middle East is China and Russia’s problem

• The United States will protect its allies in the region and that includes Israel

• The US sees no need for Iran to have nuclear weapons, but we expect China and

          Russia to see that that does not happen.