Barack Obama chooses bad instead of worse in Iraq

U.S. President Barack Obama will be speaking in an hour. Apparently, he has formulated a plan for dealing with ISIS. That plan will, if the talking heads on CNN are to be believed, include arming rebels in Syria and bombing the hell out of the Islamic State’s positions in Iraq and Syria. Obama has been forced to choose between bad and worse.

I still maintain, as I did in my first post about ISIS, that getting involved in this conflict is a bad option. There are so many tribal, ethnic, religious and political vagaries involved that your ally today will be your enemy tomorrow and may in fact be your enemy today. Beyond that, you can’t beat an idea (the caliphate) and an ideology (militant Islam) with bombs even if you need to bomb threats.

I’m watching CNN right now and General Wesley Clark said the U.S. needs to get Sunni Arab troops in the region to fight ISIS. On the face of it, that makes sense. If you have Sunni Arab troops in a Sunni Arab region of Iraq you’re more likely to undermine local support for ISIS, which is made up of primarily Sunni Arabs, as the ‘occupiers’ would be culturally, ethnically and religiously like the ‘occupied’.

The problem is, at least from my vantage point, that neighbouring Sunni Arab states like Jordan or Saudi Arabia want to get involved like they want a bowl of toe juice for breakfast. They want to stay out of it for a variety of reasons.

1. The monarchies don’t want to become any more of a target than they already are among religious radicals.
2. There’s  a strong element of support for ISIS in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, etc. In fact, ISIS has received financial support from wealthy Arabs in the region.
3. While Shiite Iranians may not like Sunni Arab extremists they wouldn’t be comfortable with Saudi troops in Iraq to say the least as they’re major competitors. Of course, it’s not like Iran and the U.S. get along, but Saudis or other Sunnis in Iraq could cause complications down the road.

I may very well be wrong. Maybe Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc. will leap at the possibility of getting sucked into what is, effectively, a regional war. After all, it doesn’t take a great leap of logic to see the regional war coming to their doorsteps if they attempt to avoid it.