Posted on 05/12/2016 5:06:14 AM PDT by SJackson
The top U.S. intelligence official is running out of options to bring peace to war-ravaged parts of the Middle East.
“I don’t have an answer,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in an interview with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.
“The U.S. can’t fix it. The fundamental issues they have — the large population bulge of disaffected young males, ungoverned spaces, economic challenges and the availability of weapons — won’t go away for a long time.” Even if armed forces are able to root out al Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other extremist groups in Iraq and Syria, the area will “be in a perpetual state of suppression for a long time,” Clapper added.
The comments are among the most pessimistic about the Middle East’s future from the nation’s top spy and reflect growing conviction within the administration that the protracted instability will outlast President Obama’s time in office.
Despite the efforts of the U.S. and allied nations, Syrian rebel groups have failed to clear ISIS from its self-proclaimed caliphate and are locked in a stalemate with embattled President Bashar Assad.
The fight against ISIS and other extremists will last “decades” Clapper told the Post, even while ISIS’s territory is slowly narrowed.
“They’ve lost a lot of territory,” Clapper said. “We’re killing a lot of their fighters. We will retake Mosul, but it will take a long time and be very messy. I don’t see that happening in this administration.”
As he nears the end of his time in office, Obama has been willing to express his frustration with international partners. Recent comments suggesting that foreign “free riders,” such as Saudi Arabia, aren’t pulling their weight to manage chaos around the globe, for example, have been scrutinized.
Clapper shares the president's mood, he said.
But that’s not the same thing as calling for the U.S. to back away from its role in the world, as presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump has suggested.
“I don’t think the U.S. can just leave town,” Clapper said. “Things happen around the world when U.S. leadership is absent.
“We have to be present — to facilitate, broker and sometimes provide the force."
If you'd like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Nobody outside the Middle East has an answer. At some point, they’ll have to solve it for themselves. In the meantime, we’ll have to keep bombing them back to the 1800s because they cannot be trusted with technology.
So, letting the U.S. be infested is okay with Clapper?!? Because, hey, "I don't have an answer"?
Armed autonomous robots will eventually be employed to "fix it."
Those robots will contain software that - at first - enables them to repair each other. Eventually, that capability will be extended to where they can build new copies of each other.
Not too long after that, you get...
and Islam. You left out Islam.
As long as islam is alive, it won't EVER go away.
Shoot the moslems.
Problem solved.
Saudi Arabia is a Wahhabi orientated country.(back to basics fundamentalists)
Saudi Arabia should be spreading chaos around the world in our Kafir nations, and anywhere else people do not recognize Islam the way it was practiced by Muhammed and the four Caliphs who succeeded him.
And that is what Saudi Arabia does in funding Mosques and Madrassahs all over the world. - Tom
Genghis and Tamerlane had answers.
Yup, nobody wants to hear that though.
And the Islamic culture which gives warriors who conquer a higher status than factory workers who earn an honest living.
As long as their culture does not give status to education (outside Quranic studies), they are not going to be good neighbors.
I got a start to the answer. How about supporting Christians over here for a change? Encouraging people to stay and build a better life. I am very impressed with the faith of Catholic/Christians in Muslim majority countries. No room for lukewarmers. Yeast for the dough:
Jobs for Syrian Christians: ‘Jesus was a carpenter—you can be one too’
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
“That’s the only way we can fight emigration and halt the exodus of faithful from the lands where the faith was born.”
http://www.churchinneed.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8967&news_iv_ctrl=1001
Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart is a real shepherd
“Things happen around the world when U.S. leadership is absent”
For almost 8 years now.
Presumably he will soon lose his job due to his excessive engagement with verifiable reality.
Things happen around the world when U.S. leadership is present, too.
How about, they kill or maim one of ours - military or civilian - we kill 5,000 of theirs...EACH AND EVERY TIME.
There’s no doubt that Judeo-Christian culture is a major reason for the success of western societies. Unfortunately, Christians in the ME are an endangered species and I’m not sure any plan could bring them back from the brink. Better to import them and deprive the ME of their few remaining virtues.
If he can’t bring himself to say that Islam is a fundamental issue, he’s hopeless.
We can either win or be politically correct. Not both.
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