Wouldn’t it be nice if all these wannabe generals – these variations of Monday-morning quarterbacks – could be swept into power overnight and then proceed to smash ISIS and other terror groups?
Very quickly, evil would be vanquished and the world would be a far better place. After all, these fantasy warriors keep claiming they have a strategy to deal with ISIS and the other festering problems in the Middle East. President Obama and his administration, they claim, are just a bunch of unfocused slackers who have no clue about world realities or the dangers of the powder keg that is the Middle East.
Trouble is, this isn’t Star Wars, an exciting movie with a plot in which good triumphs over evil; this is the real world with all of its maddening, interconnected, tangled complications.
The Middle East, more than ever these days, is one massive migraine headache. Fixing a problem there is like trying to remove a thread from a tapestry, so much easier said than done. ISIS, reportedly, is gaining ground at an alarming rate. The Iraqi army, so-called, lays down its arms and flees from ISIS. Shia Militia groups backed by Iran are fighting Sunni ISIS. The Kurds near Turkey have had successes fighting ISIS, but Turkey won’t cooperate with the United States in helping equip the Kurds. United States air strikes have limited power because one of ISIS’s strategies is to blend in with populations of civilians.
Those are just some of the maddening, tangled complications of the geopolitical mess, which is also complicated and made worse by the instability of other countries in that area – a volatile nightmare.
After Syria’s dictator Bashir Assad used chemical weapons against civilians a couple of years ago, President Obama, righteously outraged, threatened to strike the Assad regime and drew “his line in the sand.” At that time, Republicans and some Democrats in Congress howled with outrage about Obama using force without congressional approval. Now they are blasting him for not having used enough force as these worsening problems developed. They are still nipping at the president’s heels every time he proposes to deal with the ISIS threats, and when his policy does lead to a success, like killing a high-powered ISIS operative recently, his loud-mouth detractors nip, nag and whine at every turn.
ISIS and terrorist groups of that ilk are a huge threat to the entire world. Getting rid of them, squelching their despicable influences, will not be easy. As Obama has correctly stated, it will take a long-time strategy.
One can argue with Obama’s tactics and his strategies, but the surest way to begin to beat back ISIS is for Americans to show a united front against terrorism. Instead of playing cocky wannabe generals constantly opposing anything and everything Obama does, these know-it-alls should join the president in helping work out effective strategies to counter ISIS. In the meantime, these paper tigers, these warmongering generals, should perhaps consider enlisting in the military so they can put their own boots on the ground.
