Americans are rightly sick of war. Iraq has been a disaster, the wrong war. As Peggy Noonan points out in the WSJ, no weapons of mass destruction there. And Saddam Hussein? Saddam, Ms. Noonan writes, was “the garbage-pail lid who kept the garbage of his nation from spilling out.”
Now there is a serious threat coming in the form of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and il-Sham). Even by terrorists’ standards, ISIS’ brutality is staggering. But after two recent botched and failed wars, America is war wary and weary. Wolf has been cried too often, but now there is a wolf and it certainly is not in sheep’s clothing. It is front and center.
British Prime Minister David Cameron writes in the Telegraph (London): “The creation of an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq and extending into Syria is not a problem miles away from home. Nor is it a problem that should be defined by a war 10 years ago. It is our concern here and now. Because if we do not act to stem the onslaught of this exceptionally dangerous terrorist movement, it will only grow stronger until it can target us on the streets of Britain. We already know that it has the murderous intent.”
The recent bombings are helping. The ISIS was forced to give up the dam it had seized in Mosul, which shows that it is not infallible. Read here from Peggy Noonan steps that can be taken—from Obama going to Congress for authorization of force (and a show of unity) to helping the Kurds every way we can, to forging new bonds with allies and potential allies.
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