In their seemingly insatiable appetite for sending America to war, the editors of the Wall Street Journal call for action to prevent DAESH from spreading its terror activities beyond Syria and Iraq. I see an awful lot of “ifs” in their thinking.
If the crash of the Russian airliner was caused by a bomb planted by DAESH…
If DAESH continues to spread its terrorist attacks…
If the Syrian government, Russians, and Iranians aren’t able to root DAESH out…
If DAESH can be removed by U. S. military action…
If we were willing to use enough force and occupy the region for the multiple generations building societies that wouldn’t require ruthless autocrats to keep them from descending into savagery would require…
If that willingness didn’t turn us into ruthless autocrats no better than those we’re condemning…
Here’s my alternative plan. Stop undermining Westphalian states. Start following the treaties to which we are signatories (or abrogate them—take your pick). Stop going to war on weak pretexts and only when there is no question of cost-benefit analysis. Start recognizing that there are billions of people in the world who aren’t suppressed liberal democrats.
If we were willing to use enough force and occupy the region for the multiple generations building societies that wouldn’t require ruthless autocrats to keep them from descending into savagery would require
How many times do we have to prove to ourselves we are incapable of “The long term”. We have elections every two years, who would sustain it?
Elections every two years? So what. I’m 47 and I believe I have lived in a district that had a freshman congressman exactly once, in 2008.