Ending a War Is Not Disengagement

A “straw man” argument is one in which, rather than directly criticizing something with which you disagree, you construct an extreme version of it and attack that, the “straw man” instead. In a piece at the Wall Street Journal Yaroslav Trofimov makes a straw man argument against pulling U. S. troops back in Syria (as of this writing they have not even been withdrawn):

Ever since the national trauma of the war in Iraq, both winning presidential candidates have run on pledges to extricate the U.S. from costly Middle Eastern entanglements.

Barack Obama promised in 2008 to end the war in Iraq launched by President George W. Bush, and during his 2012 re-election campaign, he touted America’s withdrawal from Iraq as a striking achievement. By the time Donald Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016, Mr. Obama had been forced to send some U.S. troops back to Iraq to prevent a takeover by the newly arisen Islamic State. Still, Mr. Trump campaigned on plans to finally end America’s “endless wars” and to cease nation-building abroad.

“We have done them a great service, and we’ve done a great job for all of them, and now we’re getting out,” Mr. Trump said this week. “Let someone else fight over this long bloodstained sand.”

He proceeds by arguing against complete withdrawal of the U. S. military from the Middle East. To the best of my knowledge neither President Obama nor President Trump have proposed such a thing. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has, yet another reason I’m skeptical of a possible Warren presidency.

The map above illustrates our many military bases in the Middle East. Has any president announced plans to remove them? Not to my knowledge. Mr. Trofimov is making a strawman argument.

I opposed our participation in the first Gulf War for any number of reasons including that I thought it was none of our business, Saddam Hussein would sell us oil as eagerly as the Emir of Kuwait did, and we would not possess the coldbloodedness to force the war to its conclusion and remove Saddam Hussein entirely. There is a direct connection between the Gulf War and the two attacks on the World Trade Center, the second of which impelled two decades of war by the United States and has not rooted out violent Islamist terrorism.

I opposed our invasion of Afghanistan on the grounds that there was quite literally nothing that would be accomplished by an invasion that couldn’t be accomplished from 50,000 feet and putting “boots on the ground” would legally impose certain obligations on us that we could not reasonably satisfy. Both of those have proven true.

I opposed our invasion of Iraq on the grounds that it was illegal, immoral, and, heinous as Saddam Hussein was, a strong Iraq was more in our interest than a weak one. The rise of DAESH following our exit from Iraq demonstrates why that might be.

I opposed our engagement in the civil war in Syria on the grounds that it is illegal and immoral and, heinous as Bashar al-Assad is, his successor was unlikely to be any better and at least his administration is secular, multi-confessional, and multi-ethnic. Additionally, neither supporting violent radical Islamists nor supporting the Marxist YPG is in our interest. The Kurds are not our allies but the Turks are and supporting the YPG aggravates the Turks.

I do not support dismantling all of our Middle East bases or complete withdrawal from the Middle East.

As to Mr. Trofimov’s argument about the rise of DAESH, whatever they are called violent radical Islamist movements are endemic in Islam. In discussing this issue with genuine Middle East experts they have generally agreed with my assessment that such would be true in any sola scriptura religion whose scripture may be interpreted as advocating spreading the religion by the sword and that does not have a magisterium. Shorter: there will always be violent radical movements in Islam. The only way we have to eliminate them entirely is to abolish Islam itself. Since I do not advocate that, the only alternatives that are left are containment and being willing to accept episodic mass terrorist attacks. We have chosen the latter alternative.