Wednesday, September 10, 2014

ISIS and inaction in Syria

The Neocons have been critical of the President for not arming the Syrian opposition. ISIL, they claim is, the result of that failure to act. But in fact ISIS might be exactly the case that justifies the President's decision.
 
The reason for not arming the the Syrian opposition fighters was that we weren't sure they were all reasonable moderates - some might be extremists;  Obama felt it was too difficult to ensure that those weapons wouldn't fall into the hands of more radical, fringe elements with anti-Western designs.

Ironically, that's precisely what happened, albeit via a slightly different route; we gave weapons to the Iraqi's who were overwhelmed by more the motivated ISIL fighters and those weapons ended up in ISIL's hands. Exactly the same would have happened, just a lot sooner, had we followed Senator McCain's advice.

The Senior Senator from Arizona was once a fairly reasonable man but his brush with half-term Alaska Governor Palin seems to have changed him; unfortunately not for the better.  

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