Here’s the kernel of retired CIA official Robert Grenier’s op-ed opposing more strenuous involvement of the U. S. in Iraq or Syria:
Sadly, America has learned very little from the experience in Afghanistan. Just listen now to the impatient voices emanating from the right concerning the Islamic State. Our allies in Iraq, they say, are hopelessly ineffective, and our allies in Syria practically nonexistent. ISIS poses a clear threat to American security, they insist: If others will not, or cannot defeat it, we should not be afraid to step forward ourselves to crush it.
These sentiments play to the instincts of many Americans, and they must be resisted at all cost. If the United States were to take the lead in the ground war in Iraq and perhaps eventually in Syria by introducing conventional combat forces, we would feed into a radical Islamist narrative that pits the invading armies of the crusader against the committed defenders of Islam. In the process we would only strengthen the appeal and the morale of our enemies, while weakening and demoralizing our friends.
My own views, while consonant with Mr. Grenier’s, take a somewhat different tack. We need to identify our interests in the region, assess the risks, and evaluate the strategies for mitigating the risks. Our interests are not the same as France’s, Germany’s, Israel’s or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s and treating their interests as our own would be a grievous error. They must act to secure their own interests and if they can’t or are unwilling to they aren’t really their interests at all.
One thing that never gets mentioned when discussing realist foreign policy is the lack of emotion. This means that there are acceptable losses. It is goal oriented, and without a goal, you are not a realist.
The means are not unlimited. The means are set within a well defined framework, and the goals and means must align. If they do not, something must change. A realist understands that a goal without the proper means cannot be achieved. This is what the idealists and the delusional hawks fail to grasp.
“Our interests are not the same as France’s, Germany’s, Israel’s or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s and treating their interests as our own would be a grievous error. “
If you find the infielder who made the most “errors” in the era from 1965 until the present you would make a great analogy. An even better one if you found the purposeful errors from the early White Sox-Reds scandal.