Submitted by Dan Sanchez via DanSanchez.me, [7]
You’ve seen those internet ads that offer “one weird trick” for eliminating belly fat or boosting testosterone, right? Well, here’s one weird trick for getting rid of ISIS and boosting our security from terrorism. The “trick” is non-intervention. And it is only weird in the sense that it is so uncommon in this age of war. Nonetheless, it works.
And it will work against ISIS because it was intervention that propelled its rise [8] and it is intervention that sustains it [9]. Non-intervention would eliminate ISIS by simply withholding its fuel and withdrawing its props.
The “one weird trick” has three easy steps. These steps are only “easy” for Westerners, because they basically amount to us refraining from constantly fucking things up. Once we get out of their way, the hard work will be done by locals [10], which is as it should be.
Step 1: The West should stop supporting [11] the jihadist-led Syrian insurgency and stop supporting the regional allies (Turkey [12], Saudi Arabia [13], etc) that are also supporting it. With the flow of weapons and money [9] cut off, rebels will defect and the ground forces of the secular Syrian regime that the U.S. has been idiotically trying to overthrow [14] will be able to push ISIS and Syrian Al Qaeda out of Syria.
Step 2: The U.S. should stop supporting the sectarian Shi’ite government in Iraq. Only when that flow of weapons and money [9] is also halted will Baghdad be forced to compromise with the Iraqi Sunnis they have been brutally persecuting [15] for a decade. And only then will the Sunni tribes feel they can afford to turn against ISIS again, as they did in 2006 [16]. This will give the terrorists fleeing Syria nowhere to run.
Step 3: The West should stop directly bombing Syria and Iraq. Such attacks inevitably massacre civilians [17], and thereby only strengthen ISIS. Civil society is thus weakened [16] and less capable of resisting the hardened extremists. Plus, more Muslim youth are thus radicalized [17] by atrocity and more susceptible to extremist recruitment [18].
More American boots [19], European bombs [20], Turkish guns [21], and Saudi money [22] will only feed the fire that fuels ISIS and make our cities more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Just stop constantly subsidizing and contributing to the war and chaos that ISIS thrives on [16]. That alone can starve and weaken that death cult enough for the non-psychotic elements of Syria and Iraq to unite and finally destroy it.
We have tolerated and enabled our governments’ bloody misadventures [8] long enough. Get the West out of the Middle East, now.
