The reasons to block the establishment of a caliphate are easy to see and recognize but sometimes the solution is part of the problem. This may be one of those times. There will be those who balk, there will be those who prevaricate, and obfuscate, but those are surmountable on the diplomatic front or if necessary by military might.
There is a second option to all out warfare, one that has less potential for global problems but would put the regional conflicts in sharp repose. I have advocated before that we should support the creation of a Kurdish state. I have a new reason to add to the mix.
The Kurds have been victorious on the battlefield against the Islamic State. They are doughty fighters and Muslim like their enemies. We need to build upon that idea and push the Kurdish propaganda to the next level. We need to point to Kurdish warriors as Muslim champions who have acknowledged prowess on the battlefield, who exemplify what being a devout Muslim can look like.
The Kurds are not perfect but then neither are we. By building them up militarily and with propaganda, we give those who are currently disenfranchised in the Middle East a place to go that is not our enemies. The main advantage is that the Kurds are not Arabs. That national distinction is also the main disadvantage but we can work around it.
If we do that, we use the same tools of the enemy, to create and build upon the forces of a friend, so that the friend, the Kurds, can carry the day instead of holding on by their fingernails. We can form Arab Brigades housed around Kurdish core leaders with U.S. Special Operations Forces guiding and training and U.S. Dollars funding the operation.
The one thing we cannot do is impose our moral structure onto their version of right and wrong. Often enough we have made alliances with people we detest and allowed them to get away with things that we found wrong. Short history lesson, Stalin killed more than 30 million Russians and others during WWII. We did not bat an eye.
There are still challenges but the hardest challenges are often the most simple. Syria as a nation is gone. It was artificially created so the demise need not really be of concern. The land will be divided up amongst the victors. The Kurds get their own nation and territory that comes from currently Turkish soil, can be replaced by giving them Syrian soil further to the west and south. The Turks can have the coast all the way to Jordanian Border with a couple of exceptions and Israel keeps the Golan Heights.
We need the Russians to agree so we bribe them with something they have always wanted; the Russians get the City of Latakia on the Mediterranean Sea. Why do this, because one, the Russians wants a warm weather port. Two, we want the Russians to stop being a pain. For that matter the United States can keep the port of Tartus as a permanent U.S. enclave.
The world losses a nation and gains one with territory that was historically theirs and taken in battle. The Russians get a port as does the United States and we can leverage that port to be a permanent base in the region to help keep a lid on things. And we can jointly oversee the area with the Russians as equals.
Is it the perfect solution? I don’t believe that there is one. The differences are just too vast for Western opinion to count for much. As for the rest, sometimes you just have to break things in order to fix them. After all, violence is a universal language.
The President is still talking a losing game. Right now we are faced with a binary solution set. We both destroy everything and fix nothing, or we build up a nation that just might turn the tide. A nation that already has good reason to fight and who we have reasonable relations with.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-ultimate-fatal-attraction-5-reasons-people-join-isis-11625
http://www.lapdonline.org/top_ten_most_wanted_gang_members/content_basic_view/23473
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