Posted on 01/11/2020 6:58:22 AM PST by Kaslin
Both Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump came into office with the desire to end the long wars America had been fighting in the Middle East. Both had been opposed to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. President Obama chose the standard isolationist approach: withdraw U.S. forces from combat and appease adversaries. He pulled all American troops out of Iraq in 2011 and signed a "nuclear deal" with Iran in 2015 based on a generous supply of carrots. This approach proved, as usual, a failure. Non-intervention does not create peace. It creates a power vacuum that others seek to fill, with consequences the U.S. cannot ignore.
President Obama ended up recommitting troops to Iraq in 2014 to confront the ISIS Caliphate and provide support for "moderate" forces in the Syrian Civil War that were attempting to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran. The Syrian gambit was half-hearted and could not match the strength Iran could bring to the battlefield even before Russia directly intervened in 2015. Turkey took control of the Free Syrian Army in 2016 with a more determined attitude and a more effective buildup of proxy forces.
President Trump inherited a complex situation which he believed was costing too much, for dubious results. As a practical leader, he wants results and his instinct is to act decisively. He stepped up military operations to defeat ISIS primarily using Kurdish troops backed by heavy airstrikes. But he understood that Iran was the major threat to the region. In his Jan. 3 statement announcing the drone strike that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, he declared "the Iranian regime’s aggression in the region, including the use of proxy fighters to destabilize its neighbors, must end, and it must end now."
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
You never hear about a cop getting mugged. Cops carry guns, even if most never have to draw their guns.
Another wonk who never humped a rifle heard from.
“The concept is called “punitive expeditions” and is as old as military history itself. Rather than fight on the enemy’s terms, the U.S. can seize the high ground of escalation dominance. Anyone who provokes the United States must expect to have an unprecedented cataclysm visited upon them. The concept of proportionality with its endless “tit-for-tat” exchanges that weaker enemies can perpetuate is to be abandoned. The result aimed for is to be lopsided and very destructive, with the ability of the enemy to recover crippled.”
The more you sweat in peace, the less you’ll bleed in war.
Writer makes a good point at the end: We’ve been strong for many years (going back to WWII, I assume), but we finally have a president willing to use that strength (to encourage peace).
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