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Congress Reports Isis Making Gains
This week members of Congress and a former member of the Defense Department reported that extremist Islamic terrorist organization ISIS have been making strategic gains as they continue to maintain control of their share of territory. According to Michele Flourney who served Defense Department under Sectetary of Policy for OBamas previous term, ISIS poses a significant threat to countries all over the world, especially with their international recruitment numbers rising. "This is a terrorist problem that affects us and we have to take a more forward leaning posture." said Flourney. Her remarks were appropriately timed as ISIS captured the city of Ramadi last week, which was pretty depressing for the US military as they had just assisted the Iraqi troops in recapturing the city a little while earlier. Senate Member McCain called out the Obama administration regarding what he views as a lack of US Governmental action over the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Iraq. He believes the president should not hesitate to deploy more troops to the war zones. "We need to have a strategy," McCain said. "There is no strategy. And anybody that says that there is I'd like to hear what it is. Because it certainly isn't apparent now." Current Defense Department Secretary Carter urges resources to be sent to the Sunni tribes in the provinces where they can more of a difference since the tribes have political interests in fighting the group. Hawaiian Democrat Gabbard agreed with Carter, saying that the persecution of Sunnis by the Shia Iraqi government military has forced entire families and communities to take refuge in ISIS
How should the international community respond to the the territorial gains?
What is the best way for the US and Iraqi governments to collectively dismantle ISIS?
3 comments:
At this point the US shouldn't confront this issue by itself, and I believe it is imperative that the UN holds a conference to confront this issue from an international perspective. I think excessive military force should be used as a last resort.
Really, I think the best the US can do right now is to count on allies to get resources and weapons into the hands of on-the-ground fighters. The best way to dismantle ISIS would be to kill everyone in ISIS and then install head implants that explode if you think ISIS thoughts as a way to cleanse sympathizers as well.
I really don't see a single, definitive best method emerging or someone far more experienced than me would have already tried to implement it. I would probably say slowly retaking towns captured in the past few moths to restrict their range of motion while also cutting down their sphere of influence.
While there are likely more effective ways to stem the growth of power in ISIS, investing in such methods takes money and manpower, and can come at the cost of a (in extreme cases) a lengthy, costly foreign war. Ben makes an interesting point in that regard; though the international community likely has enough resources and firepower to stamp out ISIS fully, the cost of doing so would be too great to the countries involved. (e.g. while the international community has enough nukes to wipe the entire territory of ISIS off the world map, doing so would, for obvious reasons, not be the best idea)
The advances of ISIS have been attributed largely due to lack of morale among the Iraqi army. Ben's suggestion of wearing away at the power of ISIS would be a step in the right direction to that cause; by reducing their sphere of influence, and thus their perceived sphere of influence, it would boost morale of troops, though in order to do so, troops would need to be able to take over territory in the first place, which in of itself poses difficulties due to lack of morale. Breaking the negative feedback loop of morale reduction is crucial; though people who are probably far more experienced than I am are likely working on the issue, it provides an area of focus that would not deplete international resources and manpower nearly as much as a more direct involvement in the war against ISIS.
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