Here we are off the coast of Iraq and once again aboard the good ship Mission Creep. Alongside it lies that mighty vessel Escalation. In the last two days. we hopped on board the USS Escalation – and took a rhetorical journey, first with the president, Secretary of State Kerry (ISIS “must be destroyed”), head of the Joint Chiefs General Martin Dempsey (“apocalyptic… beyond anything we’ve seen… Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria? The answer is no.”), the Secretary of Defense (the U.S. “continues to explore all options”), and even former Afghan war commander General John Allen (“move quickly to pressure [ISIS’s] entire ‘nervous system’, break it up, and destroy its pieces”). In the process, the possible bombing of Syria – not the part run by the Assad regime, but this time the ISIS-run regions – came up publicly for the first time. This is quite a performance – and must have thrilled the leadership of the new caliphate, for whom the hysterical enmity of the U.S. is undoubtedly a distinct plus, a credentials booster. Tom Here’s a good Guardian summary article on developments: theguardian/world/2014/aug/21/isis-us-military-iraq-strikes-threat-apocalyptic And one by Jason Ditz at Antiwar that is very useful: news.antiwar/2014/08/21/pentagon-pushes-iraq-syria-escalations/
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 13:00:01 +0000
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