With the recent US election ensuring continued Congressional support for an interventionist foreign policy, President Obama has embarked on a foreign spending spree. First the president announced that US troop levels in Iraq would double to more than 3,000 – and that he’s “never gonna say never” to additional troops – and then he announced that he would seek nearly $6 billion to continue funding Iraq War 3.0 and Syria war 1.5.
This week, the president decided much more needed spent — $165 million — to fund the rebels who had previously been fighting the Assad government in Syria, but who hopefully will begin fighting ISIS in Syria. Assad has been fighting ISIS all along in Syria, and his military recently bombed several ISIS positions, but he is not considered a partner in the fight against ISIS. Syrian rebel groups who will enjoy more of Uncle Sam’s largesse have been of late surrendering to ISIS, throwing their US-supplied weapons in to sweeten the deal. Other US-approved Syrian rebel groups have announced a truce with al-Qaeda in Syria, which once upon a time sat atop the US enemies list.
It is confusing. Assad who fights ISIS is the US administration’s enemy. Syrian “moderate” rebels who surrender US-provided weapons to ISIS and join al-Qaeda are considered good partners.
Central to President Obama’s strategy to “degrade and destroy” ISIS is non-US boots on the ground to do the fighting. These are said to come from the Iraqi army (which turned and ran at first sign of conflict) and a yet-to-be-created new “moderate” Syrian rebel army. However this plan has already run aground. Recent regime change in Iraq has not produced the desired stiffening of Iraqi military capabilities and the plan to train a new Syrian rebel army has been dramatically scaled back. As it now stands, US training will only yield some 5,000 troops after a year and those troops are to be used in a protective role rather than a war-fighting role.
Whence then comes these ground forces necessary to degrade and destroy ISIS (as if that were possible)? Saudi Arabia? Qatar? Israel? Turkey? No, no, no, and no.
Look to the US and its loyal sidekicks (UK, Canada, etc.) to continue down the slippery slope to another full ground invasion. At that time, we will look back at this $165 million request as mere chump change. How long can the dollar hold out against this constant assault?
