As turban-wearing hordes ride down on their stallions from the hills, their sharpened scimitars gleaming in the bright Mesopotamian sunshine, threatening to add to the steadily growing mound of heads separated from their now-twitching bodies, should the United States saddle up, lock and load, and ride out to meet them? Should it crush its enemies, see them driven before its eyes (and possibly, hear the lamentation of their women)? Should it, having broken it, now buy it?
Ja oder nein?
Ich glaube nicht. In the Middle East, the US is not just the proverbial bull in a china shop, it is a heavily armed and irresponsible member of Bos Taurus. The last time the US went into Iraq, it was for an illegal war that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis; it set off a series of cosmic political earthquakes which sparked some of the most bitter and bloody internecine conflict seen in the region (and trust me, given that region’s history, that takes some doing.) The war criminals that conducted that war–George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld–are now comfortably retired and unlikely to face charges in a court any time soon; the political pusillanimity of Barack Obama and many others has ensured their great escape. But their ghoulish minions and their associated sensibility would presumably like to run the highlights reel of the Iraq War in repeat mode, thus ensuring a particularly nightmarish version of the eternal recurrence for all concerned, whether they be Iraqis or Americans.
Genug ist genug. There are, quite possibly, some domains in which a judicious application of overwhelming American military force might work to bring about better political outcomes–though I have to admit, I’m having a hard time thinking of any off the top of my head. Still, even if the set of nations ripe for American military intervention is a non-empty one, its characteristic function would most certainly reject any member of the set {x: x is a Muslim country in the Middle East} as an element. The US did not seem to realize, back in 2003, that armed invasion and occupation of a Muslim nation was geo-political dynamite–the kind that blows off your fingers in the most favorable of eventualities. More often than not, it incapacitates you permanently, permanently foreclosing many future paths of action. As it has.
Whatever strategy the US adopts in its response to the ISIS, it should not be one that includes high explosives–whether dropped with laser-guided precision or merely steered into the arsenals of one of the combatants. These options will ensure–I find myself saying this with some mysterious foreknowledge–an even more catastrophic denouement than the one currently under way.
The United States is the mother of all superpowers; it should find ways to express that power through channels other than the military. We are often reminded of American ingenuity and innovation, its most distinctive features in a world populated by unimaginative copycats; now might be good time to dig into the stores and put some of those on display.
But no more shock and awe please.
