Published: Fri, Oct. 31 2:17 p.m. MDT
President Barack Obama’s policies failed in Iraq because he doesn’t understand the culture — something he and Democrats are supposedly good at doing. Despite constantly lecturing us about being more sensitive, supposed multiculturalists are the ones who really don’t understand other cultures. Yes, it’s frustrating that Iraqis don’t seem to have a strong desire to fight for their freedom, but we look through our prism of life. As Americans, we stand on principle — which we should — but we would all be dead after one regime change in the Middle East.
Iraqis have survived thousands of years by not sticking their heads up too high and carefully picking the winner by defecting to the shifting power. Understanding this, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Iraqis abandoned their posts and slipped into the masses once the president abandoned them. This is also why foreign policy should be based primarily on our own self-interest. Now it will be even more difficult to get Iraqis to stand and fight because of a lack of trust; Iraqis will also doubt that the U.S. is truly committed. The great irony is that President Obama’s inaction has most likely necessitated the need for U.S. ground troops.
A simple reassurance such as a residual force or a quick airstrike could have easily turned the tide, but instead as thousands of our Iraqi allies were slaughtered and ten thousands of Christian and Jews ethnically cleansed, President Obama arrogantly imposed his values on others and insisted that he wouldn’t stop the killing of our allies until a new coalition was formed. This totally disregards the reality of hundreds of years of mutual atrocities by Shias and Sunnis against each other.
Although air power has limits (as we currently see in Syria), it is extremely lethal on an advancing army in the desert. But this requires quick decision-making, which Obama completely lacks. Instead of action, we got news release after new conferences that a policy was being formed. President Obama squandered an opportunity to literally take out thousands of the most hardened ISIS fighters. There is no negotiation with those who use beheadings as recruiting videos.
ISIS is a real threat and must be destroyed, but we shouldn’t get dragged into a civil war with no clear good guys to back. Toppling Syrian President Bashar Assad will only make things worse because terrorism flourishes in chaos. Like it or not, dictators crush terrorists, especially if they know that they will be held accountable. In anarchy, there’s no government to hold responsible, as is the case in Libya thanks to President Obama’s incoherent foreign policy. When things get tough for Syrian rebels fighting ISIS, the result will be the same as rebels abandon their posts and, once again, our own military equipment will be used against us.
For all of Assad’s brutal faults, he’s protected Christian and Jewish enclaves that Syrian rebels destroyed once they took over territory. Priests and nuns have been kidnapped and whole communities ethnically cleansed in rebel regions. Women have been tied up naked and repeatedly raped. Even some Republicans don’t understand that if you have to choose between a sectarian dictator and religious one, you take the sectarian every time.
Unfortunately, the recent Syrian resolution passed by Congress lets the president act like he is doing something serious to ISIS without a serious policy. This increases the likelihood of being dragged into a civil war. But more importantly, the president isn’t forced to learn from his mistakes in Iraq. Why then should we expect different results in Syria with even grimmer consequences?
Chris Herrod is a former Republican representative for the Utah House of Representatives. He holds degrees from Brigham Young University.