A lot of ordinary people think it's time to just leave the Middle East. I think the way we got to this situation
in the first place was to just leave Iraq. ISIS is Al Qaeda in Iraq with
a changed name and slightly different ideology. ISIS used the Shiite
dominance in Iraq as its initial recruiting tool.
When we finally intervened to
stop ISIS, Barry the Brilliant decided not to wipe out Bashar al Assad's air
force on the ground. There are widespread reports in military circles
that the strike was planned and called off at the last minute. The
combined effect of just leaving Iraq and leaving Damascus' air force intact
resulted in the deaths of literally hundreds of thousands of Syrians and
Iraqis.
If we leave now, the killing
will only move at a more rapid pace. If you can live with civilian deaths
rising towards one million and the rising risk of general, possibly nuclear,
war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Egypt, Jordan and perhaps
Israel in the Middle East, then we should leave. I can't.