Quick Take: The Problem With Going After ISIS

U.S. v. ISIS w/boots on the ground = a possible repeat of Bush’s war, and for many of the same reasons that war transpired the way it did.

U.S. v. ISIS w/o boots on the ground = a possible repeat of the U.S. experience in early 80s Lebanon, where the American military could very understandably not make practical sense of the Kafkaesque allegiances of the many local militias and left the country with both fewer friends and fewer soldiers.  That problem can’t be fixed by a politician’s proclamation that the USAF won’t become “the Shia Air Force.”

Is it no win operation?  That possibility is much greater than leaders in either party are talking about.

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