ISIS In Iraq: The U.S. Response Is More Foreign Policy Butchery

Many of the same voices calling for action in Iraq over a decade ago are calling for action against ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) today. The same voices who were wrong about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and who continue to this day to insist there were WMDs. The same voices who said we would be greeted as liberators only to find out we were greeted as the hostile foreign occupying power that we were. The same voices who said it would be an easy war that would be over in weeks or months only to see it drag out for nearly a decade. The same voices who were wrong not only about Iraq, but were wrong about nearly every previous American foreign policy stance in the decades leading up to the Afghanistan war and the second Iraq war (yeah, I'm talking to you Dick Cheney). The same people who are wrong about everything in the Middle East, and have no clear answers on how to defeat ISIS, but conveniently blame President Obama every step of the way. They say ISIS is a result of Obama pulling our troops out of Iraq. Never mind that the agreement for withdrawal happened during Bush's presidency. And never mind that we waged nearly a decade of war. If the argument by the people who are wrong every step of the way is that we pulled out of Iraq too soon, then I ask these people: How long did we need to stay? 15 years? 25 years? Forever? The reality is this: al-Qaeda was NOT in Iraq before the United States invaded Iraq, and ISIS in Iraq is more of the same. This problem is a result of a century of botched western foreign policy in the Middle East. And our response? More war, more foreign policy butchery. If there is one thing that is now crystal clear, U.S. foreign policy and war making is no longer on our terms. No, those terms are now being dictated to us by a terrorist group known as ISIS. And that is happening because we have allowed fear to overtake reason.