Thread: ISIS and the future of the Middle East

We need to stop playing around in that hornets' nest. I wish the good guys the best, but we need to get out of there. We have an economy that is facing collapse because of a debt so high it's almost funny, and our wars in the Middle East have a great deal to do with that. Plus, the hatred that the terrorists feel for us has a lot to do with our Middle East interventions. The terrorists are irrational in the way they handle things, but stirring up the irrational is a futile game that results in irrational chaos. A lot of good things have resulted from our Middle East interventions, but a lot more bad has resulted. In hindsight in 2014, I think the result of our interventions will be perpetual war that perpetuates itself until we decide to stop playing the game.

Our situation is like going to a bar full of pissed off hillbillies to protect a small group of people who are way out of place (Israel) and who insist on hanging out there after having stolen another group's table hours ago. Our protection of the table stealers who are out of place leads to angry hillbillies attacking us, so we send more people to the bar to deal with that result of our actions in the bar. We beat up a bunch of hillbillies, so more hillbillies come to fight us, and we bring in more people to fight the hillbillies. Because of this, hillbillies are going to our houses and beating up our roommates. That pushes us to send more people to the bar and to fight more hillbillies and take over some tables. So now even more hillbillies are pissed off and wanting to attack us. Plus, the hillbillies are fighting each other, and we are meddling in that. Where does our part in the situation end?

The situation perpetuates itself until... what? Do we keep fighting hillbillies in the bar forever and ever? If we leave the bar, does it mean we are giving in to hillbilly intimidation, or does it just mean we have come to terms with the fact that we had an absurd policy in the first place? I think we need to realize that we are fueling self-perpetuating irrationality by going to the bar and were doing that from the beginning. Let's go home now. If the table stealers want to stay at the bar, that's up to them. It is arguably their table now, but why should we play their game with them? How much longer are we going to interfere in the hillbillies' fights with each other and gather more reasons to fight? What does a hypothetical victory in this involve, and how would we ever achieve it?