A Disaster Waiting to Happen
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- Published on Tuesday, 19 May 2015 23:45
- Written by editor
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1119 .... May 20, 2015
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A Disaster Waiting to Happen:
Expanding the U.S.-led ISIS War to Other Countries
Gregory Shupak
According to a 29 April report in The New York Times, leaders from the U.S.-led coalition at war with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) will meet in the coming weeks to consider broadening the mission to other countries. At present, the Obama administration is attempting to secure congressional support for a measure that would authorize expanding the war to such nations as Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen. Extending U.S.-led military operations would be disastrous and should be resisted.
Western military intervention is not the way to solve the ISIS crisis. Thus far it has made few gains against the group and ISIS is still... strong -- despite the coalition being at war against them since the U.S. began carrying out airstrikes in August of last year. The coalition has gone on more than 3,700 bombing runs in Iraq and Syria but still ISIS holds important territories such as Mosul in Iraq and Deir Ezzor in Syria.
Recently ISIS has advanced on Damascus and attacked both Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's Anbar province, and Baiji, Iraq's largest oil refinery. There is also evidence that the number of people leaving Europe to join ISIS has actually increased in recent months. Meanwhile, there are signs of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra working together at Yarmouk, the Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. Therefore, coalition bombings are facilitating cooperation between ISIS and al-Nusra, as some earlier reports also suggest.
It's possible that all this might change and that the Western-led coalition might eventually help disperse ISIS from the territories it controls. But unless the underlying conditions that enable a group like ISIS to flourish are addressed, another similarly ruthless organization will simply take its place. Furthermore, it is absurd to expect that the killing and oppression carried out by ISIS or any other actor will by halted by U.S.-led military action, because ending tyranny and violence is plainly not the objective of the U.S. and its allies’ approach to the Middle East.