This tactic is tired, and I've seen it from you more than once. No one said "Blame America" so take that back to where it came from.
Really? Here is the exact quote from you:
What drives them is American dominance in the region, our continued unconditional support of Israel, and most importantly our propping up of client state dictatorships in Saudi Arabia among other nations.
You gave three reasons for why they do what they do, and
all of them were blaming this country. You blamed nothing else -- not their radical ideology, not rabble-rousers or conditions in their own nations, not their expressly stated desire to suppress all religious beliefs except their own, nothing. They are driven solely by things we've supposedly done wrong, despite radical Islam having a genesis in that region when we weren't involved there
at all.
But you've provided one example of the geopolitical school of thought that blames U.S. involvement for violence, and believes that -- whether because of malevolence or just blundering -- our presence/involvement inevitably makes things worse. I'm not saying that you hold that belief
generally, but that certainly appears to be the case with the particular opinion you expressed here.
But I do think that is one of the
President's core foreign policy principles -- that things would get better on their own if we just left them alone. Kind of the Jmmy Carer foreign policy on steroids.
And I believe that's part of what has him looking so indecisive/passive right now. When one of your core precepts is that U.S. involvement makes things worse, then how do you respond when our un-involvement/withdrawal/passivity is followed not by a reduction in tensions and conflict, but by massive escalation? Reality has contradicted his worldview. And now when the sentiment seems to be that we should "do something", that sentiment runs up against that long-held belief that "doing something" makes things worse. So, he dithers.
But if you think bombing ISIS and engaging them in armed conflict will solve this problem you're mistaken. You can't win a war against an idea. More and more Muslims will continue to perceive this as a war against Islam, and more and more of them will take up arms against the United States.
An effective military campaign against ISIS can defeat ISIS. Whether you can defeat "an idea" is fairly irrelevant because you
can win a war against the people who espouse that idea so as to at least limit, and sometimes eliminate, their effectiveness and that idea.
The Cathars and a great many others likely would disagree with you about not being able to win a war against an idea. There are tons of examples throughout history where successful military campaigns have essentially killed an idea. Or at least, prevented those who still believe in that idea from being able to meaningfully affect the rest of the world.
I also reject your aphorism that fighting against radical Islam will simply encourage more people to join it. That's a bootstrapping argument that ignores how ISIS got all that power and influence in the first place in places in which we had no real involvement at all. And I think there's pretty good evidence that ISIS expanded so rapidly in Iraq precisely because it
wasn't being countered by a competent military adversary.
I'm not saying we shouldn't level strikes against ISIS specifically as that is a narrower issue.
Okay, so you agree that we
should level strikes against ISIS? Then where's the disagreement? Because I never said that U.S. military involvement alone was the best course to address the overall problem.
What I am saying is that we should not expect such a military conflict to solve this large-scale problem. We will need to change our foreign policy, drastically, if we really want an end to Islamic extremism targeted towards the United States.
I agree that it may not be a problem that can be resolved
solely through military means, but it also isn't one that can be resolved purely by non-military action either. The primary impetus to solve the larger scale problem is going to have to come from within the larger community of Islam.
