We should bomb Assad and bomb ISIS. The only difference between the two is that Assad is the recognized government of an established state and plays by some international rules and norms and ISIS doesn't follow those norms. But they are both brutal sectarian dictatorships that use genocide, oppression, rape, violence, etc. to achieve political gains.

In fact I think it is in the US' best interest to only bomb Assad and let ISIS win the civil war. Assad is allied with countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea and ISIS has no allies. Let ISIS win the war, it will deal a blow to those other scummy dictatorships and then mop up ISIS afterwards.

However, this is definitely a high variance play since it will further destabilize the region, cause blowback and unintended consequences, terrorist attacks in the West, etc. But getting rid of Assad is definitely +EV since you get rid of a centralized dictatorship allied with other centralized dictatorships and replace it with a weak, isolated dictatorship.

No, it doesn't. I'm not saying we should have toppled Saddam, clearly, we shouldn't. But once we did, and we created this mess, we do certainly have a moral obligation to stop a genocide that is happenning because of what we did.

The gypsy comment was loltastic dumb. But you do realize that I wasn't saying that only Europeans can handle, democracy, right? Just that you can't force democracy on another people, it has to evolve there itself.

That's pissing off a whole lot of people

This.

Bomb ISIS in Syria all you want, but only in agreement and coordination with Syria.

Lol

No, he didn't get it right at all. Moderate rebels didn't turn into ISIS six months ago. They've been fighting as the Free Syrian Army this whole time. For the last year they have been battling against ISIS forces. Their are effectively three huge factions in Syria fighting it out against each other right now. Obviously this is an oversimplification and the FSA is made up of a multitude of forces, but that is much more accurate than what the OP is stating.

Here's how to deal with ISIS

Setup a multi nation strike team designed to kill as many of them as possible.

First bait them into attacking Baghdad. If they think they can take it, I bet they will try. Act out a government disaster scenario, pretend like the government is about to fall and everything is chaos. Have fake defense troops that get their asses kicked and run away. Repeat this. Once the majority of ISIS forces are in play, send in everything to wipe them out. Start making craters out of their positions, send in the best teams to kill the caliph and other top guys, rain fire. Every permanent UN Security Council should have a special forces unit ready to blast the **** of out them. That way every nation shares responsibility.

Problem solved. Just kill them all. It's the Middle East, you can get away with mass deaths and it'll be cool.

Silly generalization. History of Poland proves you wrong for example.

As long as we will look at Islamic countries through the post-enlightement realpolitik lense, we won't be able to accurately describle and resolve the main issue - religion.
The only way to develop a country is to liberate women and respect individual rights. This is not possible in a society ruled by Islam.

I believe the 2nd pic is from Afghanistan, not Iran.

There is so much AIDS endemic to this forum. This thread is a pretty good example.

This is so lol and naive.

How?

Poland is one of the first few countries where the king was forced to devolve power to the nobles.

The only try to establish democracy in Poland before '89 ended in failure.
Sure there was a difference between Poland in '89 and Iraq in '04, but that generalization is still silly.

Obama's Strategy Misfire

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/0...5.html?ml=po_r

It's fairly obvious why President Obama appears to be stuck in a Hamlet-like dilemma seemingly unable to make a decision. He's been stung so many times by decisions concerning Iraq that he's gun shy. Politically, he's convinced that if he acts unilaterally in his role as Commander-in-Chief and the outcome [of carrying out his orders] is less than optimal; he'll be crucified by his critics - on both the left and the right. So, if he winds up opting for significant military action - especially inside Syria - he will do so only with a specific (and explicit) authorization from Congress.

He's going to force Republicans to go on the record with an up-or-down vote before he orders a direct escalation. Then, if it all goes to hell and collapses into chaos, his Republican opponents will not be able to criticize him - especially the ones who will have voted for the escalation. (Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell, who is running for reelection in a tight race, seemed to be "preparing his voters" yesterday for the possibility/probability that we're fixing to get reengaged in Iraq. Senator McConnell explicitly stated that he would "support" a request from President Obama for authorization to conduct air strikes inside Syria targeting ISIL.) That's just one tea leaf pointing to the likelihood that President Obama isn't going to act without a specific authorization from Congress.

^^^ Good, that's what he's supposed to do.

Yeah that's a smart move I guess...if all you're worried about is how you are perceived. Time for action is now dudes, those ISIS ****s are everywhere. Someone should out political them all by announcing a plan.

Maybe train some Middle East people be insurgents in their territory. Get some insurgency going in their land, USA is great at making that happen draft up a plan.

Rand Paul thinks so

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...stop-isis.html

I dont' care about the perception per se; I care about forcing ME countries and everyone else to contribute.

ISIS is an unique opportunity here. For the first time in a very long time we have an entity (not named Israel) that's a threat to both Shiite and Sunni powers in the region. Get the Turks, Saudis, Egyptians, Qataris, hell, Iranians, to help kicking ISIS out of the region.

There has to be a way to capitalize on this. Killing all ISIS in sight without a followup plan is not it.

I think it's pretty absurd that so many people are assuming the U.S. has no strategy for dealing ISIS. If we did have a good strategy for dealing with them, it would be ridiculous to announce it publicly. Just because we appear to be doing nothing now, doesn't mean it's not part of larger plan. It's possible there are machinations going on outside of public view. It's also possible that doing nothing right now is part of a good strategy.

The more mayhem ISIS is allowed to create in the region, the more resolved and committed it's other enemies will become, both inside and outside Iraq/Syria. I think a big problem with our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq is that we went in and made a relatively stable situation unstable and created a lot of ambivalence if not outright animosity among the populations. If we let this thing percolate to the point where the average person there is disposed to look upon western intervention very favorably, things will be much easier for us when we do go in. It's pretty irrelevant how much territory or power ISIS consolidates in the meantime. They will get crushed in open combat no matter what.

Maybe creating confusion among the American people and the world is part of Obama's super secret strategy.

I don't think it's a secret that Obama wants rest of the world to pitch in.

Bump for speech.