The Vietnamization of America's Middle Eastern Wars

More and more, America's wars in the Middle East and Africa bear a disturbing resemblance to the Vietnam War.   The Afghanistan war papers revealed that the government hasn't been truthful about the U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan, and that there is no path to victory.  https://news.yahoo.com/afghanistan-war-american-people-lied-to-washington-post-papers-201042599.html.  We earlier learned that the government's claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction--the justification used by the George W. Bush administration for invading Iraq in 2003--was also a lie.  https://www.salon.com/2015/05/20/george_w_bushs_cia_briefer_admits_iraq_wmd_intelligence_was_a_lie/.  These stories are reminiscent of the Pentagon Papers, which in 1969 revealed the Pentagon had lied to the American people about the Vietnam War, greatly inflating the prospects for victory while thousands of troops died for its lies.  But the Pentagon Papers didn't say much that surprised the troops who had fought in Vietnam.  They already knew the war was unwinnable.  Morale among U.S. troops in Vietnam was so bad that drug and alcohol use were rampant in the ranks, desertion was disturbingly frequent, and alleged fratricide in the form of killing officers an occasional measure supposedly taken to avoid seemingly pointless casualties and death. 

Now we are hearing that many members of the military oppose America's wars in the Middle East.  https://www.salon.com/2020/01/12/many-soldiers-want-to-stop-fighting-lets-build-a-movement-that-welcomes-them_partner/ and https://www.newsweek.com/combat-veteran-gold-star-husband-support-trump-ending-wars-1471550. Perhaps some 50,000 or more troops have resisted service in these wars.  https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/03/what-happens-to-most-awol-soldiers.html.
This military opposition to the war ominously changes the dynamics of the U.S. Middle Eastern wars.  When the troops themselves lose their sense of mission, the possibility for success evaporates.  Who wants to die to further Donald Trump's impulsive, strategy-light decisions? 

America's leadership can offer endless rationales for having some 80,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East and Africa.  But experience has taught that these rationales and $2 will buy a newspaper.  The government has no strategy for victory and our troops know it.  Refusing to acknowledge or deal with this reality didn't result in success in Vietnam, and it won't result in success now.  Even though America wisely stopped drafting men to into the military after the debacle of the Vietnam era, we can't expect that an all-volunteer military will blindly obey orders and die pointlessly.  Retreat and withdrawal are never easy.  But America's withdrawal from Vietnam, although deeply painful, also marked the beginning of a process of reconciliation, healing and growth.  America remained the world's most powerful nation and has enjoyed growth and prosperity since then. While there are many problems here that must be resolved, problems that may seem intractable at times, fighting unwinnable wars will only make things worse.  The wars in the Middle East and Africa have morphed into latter day Vietnam Wars.  Let's get out now.

Another Obama Foreign Policy Miss

The ongoing dustup between Iran and Saudi Arabia over the Saudi execution of a Shiite cleric (Nimr al-Nimr) and three other Shiites reflects another foreign policy foul up by the Obama administration.  Instead of tamping down sectarian tensions in the Middle East, the Obama administration (and its predecessor, the George W. Bush administration) made it easier for conflict to flare up.  A "democratically elected" government was established in Baghdad which, not surprisingly was Shiite dominated because Iraq is majority Shiite.  But adequate protection for the interests of Iraqi Sunnis, Kurds and other ethnic or religious groups wasn't ensured.  So Iraq degenerated into sectarian warfare, with the Sunni-dominated ISIS readily able to seize vast amounts of Sunni Iraq without facing much of a fight.  For the same reasons, it's been impossible to organize a military force in Iraq that can dislodge ISIS, except at the margins.

The Obama administration stood by the sidelines as Syria descended into civil warfare, without having a discernible, let alone coherent, policy.  The only line in the sand drawn by President Obama was to warn Bashar Assad against using poisonous gas, and when Assad did just that, Obama flinched.  His flinch paved the way for Vladimir Putin to start mucking around in Syria, a role that Putin has now expanded to a much larger military commitment to Assad.  Iran has been supporting Assad, because he is a member of the Alawites, a religious group affiliated with the Shiites.  So we have Russia and Iran working against the Saudis and their allies, who have been supporting Sunni interests in Syria.  The war in Syria is now firmly sectarian.  The ideals of the Arab Spring died a hard death there.

In Yemen, Shiite rebels have booted the Sunni ruler, and Iran is supporting the Shiite side of a civil war against the Saudi-supported Sunni side.  The U.S. used to have a Special Forces presence in Yemen, but those troops reportedly have left the country.  So we have in Yemen a second proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The Obama administration has been trying to sell the nuclear accord with Iran as a great diplomatic achievement.  But the Saudis are nervous about the agreement, apparently believing that it doesn't truly restrain Iranian nuclear ambitions.  So, even while Obama thinks he's getting somewhere with Iran, he's losing influence over the Saudis.  It shouldn't be a surprise that the Saudis are getting feistier.  They evidently don't believe they can count on the U.S.  One would think that the U.S. might have restrained the Saudis from executing Nimr al-Nimr.  But either the administration didn't know the execution was scheduled (which would seem an intelligence failure) or it didn't understand the importance of the execution to the Iranians (which would seem an intelligence analysis failure). 

At the same time, the nuclear accord appears to have emboldened the Iranians.  They fired missiles from a ship that was hardly a mile away from an American aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf.  They've announced they'll increase their ballistic missile capabilities, apparently in violation of a UN resolution.  But neither action generated a response from the U.S. other than commentary by official spokespersons along the lines of "naughty, naughty." 

The President reportedly is holding back on sanctions against Iran because he wants to implement the nuclear accord and strengthen the hand of Irans moderates.  The problem is we don't really know who is in control of Iran (another intelligence failure).  Implementing the accord means rolling back sanctions and allowing Iran to sell more oil internationally and otherwise engage in more international trade.  This will increase Iran's financial strength.  Who really controls that strength--Iranian moderates, Iranian radicals or Iranian terrorists?  No wonder the Saudis think they may have to go their own way.  If Obama is, in effect, going to strengthen Iran, the Saudis have to find ways to push back.

President Obama is dead set on avoiding conflict.  That much is clear to everyone.  Assad steps across his line in the sand and he does nothing.  Iran engages in provocative behavior after the nuclear accord, and he does nothing.  Putin has Russian jets bomb American-supported moderate rebels in Syria and Obama does nothing.  While almost no one in America wants our ground troops back in the Middle East, it's clear that the administration's policies are heightening sectarian tensions in the Middle East.   Just as the Obama administration was unduly focused on al-Qaeda until ISIS literally blasted its way into the administration's consciousness, it's now too obsessed with combating ISIS and not focused enough on the root problem of reducing sectarian tension.

The Middle East could degenerate into regionwide sectarian warfare in a flash--indeed, it's already partly there.  ISIS has been able to hold large amounts of territory only because sectarian tensions have been allowed to flare up.  It's important now to try to get the Iranians and Saudis to stand down.  The more Obama appeases Iran, the more provocative Iran becomes.  The recent Iranian Persian Gulf missile firing and ballistic missile program boost should be met with sanctions and a delay in the implementation of the nuclear accord.  The Iranians need to be firmly told that if they want to be re-admitted to international society, they have to be good citizens.  At the same time, the U.S. should quietly reassure the Saudis that it stands with them, and that they need to cool their jets.  Saudi arms should be twisted if necessary.  In other words, Obama has to stop appeasing and get tough with the toughs in the Middle East.

If the U.S. can lower sectarian animosity in the Middle East, it may be able to put together a working alliance to defeat and eventually destroy ISIS.  But if sectarian tensions keep increasing, there will be no workable solution for dealing with ISIS, and more conflict will likely erupt, further eroding American interests and influence.  ISIS could survive and perhaps even prosper.  It seems unlikely, however, that Obama, now firmly ensconced in his Ivy League populated bubble, will somehow connect with the realities of foreign relations.  That's a shame, because it means that he, like George W. Bush before him, will leave a foreign policy mess for his successor.

Everyone's a Loser in Syria

With Russia's entry into the bag of dog doo that is Syria, the chattering classes are all astir over who's up, who's down, who's winning and who's losing.  Russia is the usual nominee for winner.  But what exactly has Russia won?  It can't win the war.  Between ISIS, the Kurds and various other rebel groups, most of Syria is no longer in the hands of the Assad regime.  Russia can't afford to commit the tens of thousands of ground troops, equipment and air power that would be needed to retake and hold all this ground, and the Assad regime's army appears too depleted to mount the major offensives that would be needed.  All Russia can do is prop up an Assad rump regime in western Syria that would be under constant attack.  That would mean an indefinite commitment to a war with no end in sight and no possibility of a Russian victory.  

Russia's puppet in Syria, Bashar al-Assad, isn't a winner; he has only avoided becoming a big loser.  His diminished army can't reconquer what he's lost in Syria.  Russian air strikes will allow him to bolster his lines and tighten up his defenses.  But a few dozen Russian air craft don't begin to provide enough air power to support an offensive that could retake all of Syria.  At the same time, Assad's authority is diminished.  Now, he will have to do whatever Putin tells him to do, and like it, as well.

The Iranians, who apparently negotiated an alliance of sorts with Russia, have had their weakness revealed.  For all their bluster and unacknowledged efforts to build nuclear weapons, they don't have the strength to prop up a two-bit dictator in a small nation.  They had to call in first, their Hezbollah allies, and then Russia.  Maybe the Iranians are claiming a propaganda victory.  But they just ceded power to Vlad the Invader, and it's generally a bad idea to give power to an aggressive despot.  Has the Islamic Iranian government forgotten that one reason Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi allied himself so closely with the United States was because the Russians wanted to take over Iran after World War II?

The Shiite dominated government of Iraq has cozied up to Russia and allowed Russian military planes to fly over Iraqi air space in order to reach Syria. Maybe it had no choice; its Iranian handlers could have told it to cuddle up to Putin.  But, reality is you can't be an ally of America and an ally of Russia.  If the Iraqis snuggle up to Putin too much, America may not provide as much military equipment or intelligence to Iraq as it once did.  It may see less value in supporting a Shiite government in Baghdad and perhaps more value in supporting the Kurds.

The Sunni rebel groups--ranging from ISIS to the various metastasizes of al Qaeda to the tiny and shrinking handful of moderate rebels supported by the United States--are ships out of luck.  They can't win, not with Russian military assets located in and protecting western Syria.  They will be battered by Russian air power, and will have to hunker down.

Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies have quietly been supporting various of Assad's opponents, hoping to unseat him and install a Sunni-friendly government.  That ain't happening now, not with Russian soldiers in Latakia.

The Kurds have enjoyed notable success in Syria, carving out safe havens for themselves and others who aren't Sunni or Shiite crazies.  But Russian air power will likely preclude further Kurdish gains.  The Kurds will have to concentrate on holding what they have.

Turkey has been fighting Russia for centuries.  Now, with Russian military aircraft in Syria, the Russians just flanked Turkey and can hit it from two sides.  Not that Putin has expressed any unfriendly intentions toward Turkey, but given the centuries of war between these two nations, nothing needs to be said.

Israel has been fighting various Russian allies almost since its inception.  Never, however, have Russian military assets been so closely positioned to Israel.  Had Iran been so brazen as to station military aircraft in Latakia, Israel's more advanced air force would have swarmed in the next morning before dawn and walloped the warm living yogurt out of the Iranians.  But Israel cannot attack Russian forces.  It can only watch, and hope that Syria proves to be a hopeless morass for Russia.

And last, but not least, the United States has seen its modest influence in Syria diminish even more.  By propping up Assad, Putin precludes any possibility of an American victory.  Not that it matters since, at this point, America isn't even really engaged in Syria.  The Obama administration issues a steady stream of press releases about Syria, but it's doing little more than talking. Since it's not engaged in Syria, it doesn't have the leverage to get the Russians out.  Hopes that Russia will join hands with the U.S. in attacking ISIS are delusional.  ISIS has weakened America's position in the Middle East.  Why would Putin want to weaken ISIS, which is doing the dirty work for him?  All he needs to do is prop up Assad, his puppet in Syria, while ISIS and America batter away at each other, neither able to conclusively defeat the other.

In the end, the absence of anyone strong enough to impose peace and order in Syria means that the country will be de facto partitioned.  That's what happened to Yugoslavia.  It's what's happening now in Iraq.  The flood of refugees into Europe will continue.  The truth is everyone is a loser in Syria.

How To Beat ISIS

It's clear that conventional warfare won't beat ISIS.  The Iraqi Army is a joke, and not a very funny one.  Whatever it does, it doesn't fight.  The Shiite militias in Iraq can't be expected to succeed in the mostly Sunni areas of Iraq now controlled by ISIS,  because they present too much risk of sectarian conflict.  The U.S. isn't going to send in ground troops to fight for the Baghdad regime (nor should it).  The Kurds, like the Shiites, can't effectively take and hold Sunni majority areas.  So how to beat ISIS?

Stop fighting World War II.  There isn't a conventional force available that can realistically be expected to beat ISIS, and probably won't be one for the foreseeable future.  Instead, hoist the Islamic insurgents on their own petard.  Sponsor insurgency against ISIS.

The problem ISIS has is that it is trying to establish a caliphate--an actual country representing the promised land of ISIS's ideology.  ISIS doesn't merely conquer.  It endeavors to establish governments, social order and a functioning economy.  If it succeeds at nation building, its legitimacy will be heightened. 

The United States, although the most powerful nation in the world, is in the uncomfortable position of being weaker in Iraq and Syria than ISIS.  Time to take a page from insurgents going back to Ho Chi Minh and Mao Tse-Tung.  When you're weak, go asymmetric.  America doesn't have armored columns to roll into ISIS-land.  The armor was surrendered by the Iraqi Army to ISIS.  Giving the Iraqis more conventional weapons may turn out to be provisioning ISIS even more.  Remember that to this day, Iran flies American F-14 and F-4 fighter-bombers. 

Instead, America should foment rebellion against ISIS.  This would be rebellion by the Sunni population in the areas where ISIS governs.  ISIS imposes a very harsh, medieval form of Islam, complete with diverse and sundry outrages such as televised beheadings, burnings, shootings, and so on.  As time passes, more and more of the population under ISIS's heel will likely harbor desires to turn their Kalashnikovs on their draconian overlords. Organized nations provide easy targets for insurgencies, since governments have to operate openly.  Their facilities, personnel and infrastructure can all be attacked.  ISIS would expend substantial resources trying to defend itself internally, leaving fewer resources for further territorial aggresion.  Predictably, ISIS would respond to insurrection harshly, and that in turn would harden hearts and minds among the oppressed.  The rebellion would continue apace.

Of course, American-supplied weapons for such an insurgency could some day be turned against America.  That was a problem in Afghanistan, when the CIA helped to arm and train Afghan rebels fighting the Soviet occupation.  But would we be better off with a Soviet/Russian controlled Afghanistan today?  What would a guy like Vlad the Invader (you know, that Putin fellow) do if he had Afghanistan as a launching pad for further territorial aggression?

We have no effective conventional options in Iraq.  Let's go unconventional.  Let's go asymmetric.

Fighting ISIS: Are We Ready To Invade Syria?

As Congress mulls the issue of authorizing the President to wage war against the Islamic State, there is a lot of discussion of how much involvement U.S. troops should have.  Should they be involved in training, advisory roles during combat, or actual combat?  But these may put the cart before the horse.  Before talking about where on the battlefield U.S. troops should be located, we should talk about what it would take to win the war. 

The Islamic State's attractiveness to its young, disaffected recruits is that, more than anything else, it is a caliphate--an actual geographic location where Islam in its supposed purest form can prevail.  ISIS offers a promised land to go to, a place where you can not only go yourself, but take your family and raise your children (as some jihadists have done).  You aren't just fighting for a cause.  You and your family can live a life of holiness and purity. 

The caliphate is a safe haven for ISIS jihadists.  Defeating ISIS requires conquering its territory--all of its territory, in Iraq and in Syria.  There is no debate over whether U.S. troops should operate in Iraq--they already are, and nobody argues they shouldn't.  But the elephant in the discussion is what to do if the U.S. and its allies succeed in pushing ISIS out of Iraq and back to its lair in Syria.  America currently has no proxy troops to attack and seize the ISIS heartland in Syria.  No other forces in Syria--the Assad regime, the moderate rebels, non-ISIS Islamic extremists, the Kurds, or anyone else--can defeat ISIS in Syria.  But if ISIS is able to maintain its safe haven in Syria, it can persist and even renew its conquering ways if and when America tires of endless troop commitments in the Middle East.  The only way to suppress ISIS is to seize control of its safe haven in Syria.

Simply authorizing the President to wage war against ISIS for three years, as he has requested, only tells ISIS that it needs to hold the fort in Syria for the next three years.  Under present circumstances, it may well be able to do that.  One reason the U.S. lost the Vietnam War was it had no way to effectively control Communist safe havens in Laos and Cambodia.  Not having a strategy for eliminating ISIS in Syria precludes victory.  We need to hear from the President and other proponents of waging war against ISIS how the war will be won in Syria.

Partition Iraq

Joe Biden, while a Senator, got it right.  Iraq should be partitioned.  Not that prescriptive advice like this really matters any more because the partitioning has already happened and there really isn't any way to undo it.

ISIS, the Sunni extremists, already control northwestern Iraq, along with a good chunk of northeastern Syria.  No one will be able to dislodge them.  The Iraqi government's army is too busy surrendering territory and weapons to retake lost ground.  The Assad regime in Syria no longer has the ability to defeat a force as powerful as ISIS.  And the U.S. isn't sending in ground troops, without which you can't take or hold territory.

The Kurds have carved out a homeland for themselves, anchored by the city of Kirkuk, and they won't give it up, not after centuries of subjugation.  Certainly, the Iraqi army can't retake the Kurdish territory, and the Kurdish paramilitary Pesh Merga appears more formidable than ISIS. 

The Shiites in Iraq hold the southern and southeastern portions of the country, which contains most of Iraq's oil wealth.  Why fight for the less valuable land farther north when they already hold the jackpot?

Trying to keep Iraq together is guaranteed to produce unmanageable friction and endless warfare.  The Iranians now have their claws into the Baghdad government, and won't give that up.  America's Sunni allies on the Arabian Peninsula--Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, etc.--have many secret supporters of ISIS, who will be royally p.o.'d if the Shiite government in Baghdad is able, with American assistance, to repress Sunni tribes in Iraq.  The Kurds have quietly allied themselves with Israel and sometimes with America, and pissing them off could weaken America's influence in the region.

America's power in the region might increase if Iraq were partitioned.  Even though once betrayed by the CIA, the Kurds would still ally themselves with the U.S., and offer American personnel a centrally located place from which to operate.  The Shiite Baghdad government might want to maintain friendly ties with America in order to counterbalance the Iranians.  Yes, the Baghdad government has cozied up to Iran.  But the Iranians are Persian, and the people in Baghdad are Arabs.  Iraq and Iran fought a bitter war with over a million dead in the 1980s, and the Baghdad government won't want its territory to become a province of a new Persian empire.

As for the Sunni area now controlled by ISIS, the U.S. could do what it did during the 2007 surge:  buy off the indigenous Iraqi Sunni tribes.  That's how the U.S. defeated al-Qaeda once before, and it's a way to undermine ISIS now.  The whack jobs that control ISIS impose an extremely harsh form of Islam--even al-Qaeda gave ISIS the boot because it thought ISIS unduly brutal (imagine that!).  The indigenous Sunni tribes in Iraq tend toward moderation, and won't be happy with the beheadings, stonings, non-medical amputations, and other barbarism that ISIS will inflict.  It's a safe assumption that U.S. Special Forces personnel and CIA agents have already started slipping into ISIS controlled areas.  Money talks, and thoughtfully large sums of money placed in the hands of the right Sunni chieftains might well lead to an ousting of ISIS.  The Sunnis might well want to carve out their own independent state, and the U.S. shouldn't get in the way.  A stable, moderate Sunni state in northern Iraq is far less likely than an ISIS caliphate to serve as an incubator of Islamic extremists who would target the U.S.  Especially if American aid flows generously to such a nation.  And America's allies in the Arabian peninsula might look favorably upon such a sanctuary for their religious brethren.

Partitioning has flaws, but not as many as the alternatives.  Yugoslavia no longer exists, but its constituent parts have learned with assistance from NATO how to refrain from ethnic cleansing.  The borders of the Near East (Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Syria and Egypt) are the result of partitioning.  Yes, there's a lot of tension and some low level warfare in the Near East.  But the utter chaos of today's Iraq isn't present.  And South Asia is functional, if not entirely peaceful.

Re-uniting Iraq will involve combat and civilian deaths, probably a lot of them.  All of America's elites, war hawks, chicken hawks, experts, pundits, and bombasts don't have an effective way to put Iraq back together again, not unless hundreds of thousands of American troops are reintroduced to re-fight the ground war.  And that ain't happening.  It's better to leverage the new status quo, which we can't change anyway, to our advantage. 

Why the Economy Could Grow: the Peace Dividend

Contrary to the expectations of many economists and financial market professionals, the U.S. economy seems to be growing reasonably well.  In the third quarter of 2013, growth was 4.1%.  For a mature, industrial economy, a 4.1% rate is good.  The Cassandras among pundits warn that it can't last.  They could be right--but they also could be wrong.

When one looks at what would impel further growth, many of the usual suspects don't seem to be helping much.  Business investment is tepid.  Income growth in the aggregate is even more tepid.  Only the the top few percent have no fear of the Grinch this Christmas.  The federal government is reducing its spending growth--primarily due to sequestration, but even the new budget deal doesn't offer major spending increases.  U.S. exports have been an economic bright spot the last few years, but America isn't an export driven nation and exports can't turn the economy around by themselves.

What, then, could be producing the growth?  The Federal Reserve's accommodative policies no doubt play a role, although much of the case for reducing quantitative easing is that its marginal impact is diminishing, and very possibly evaporating.  The Fed hasn't done anything lately to produce a growth spurt.  Its primary role has been to keep a thumb in the dike until other forces cause the economy to perk up.

But one factor to bear in mind is that America may be starting to enjoy a peace dividend.  The end of major wars is almost always followed by a period of prosperity.  The Civil War was followed by the rapid growth of the Gilded Age.  World War I was followed by the Roaring Twenties.  World War II was followed by decades of prosperity.  And the conclusion of the Cold War in 1990 was followed by the prosperity of the 1990s.  Only the end of the Vietnam War wasn't followed by a growth spurt, and that might well be attributable to the oil price shocks administered by OPEC, which transferred a great deal of wealth to oil producers and away from the consumers who comprise two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

Even though America remains embroiled in seemingly never-ending conflict, we have a peace dividend in the offing.  The war in Iraq is over.  The war in Afghanistan is winding down.  Although U.S. military and security personnel continue to confront challenges in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America, none of them involve the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars, as did the recent Iraq and Afghan wars.  Large amounts of America's wealth that were being spent on weapons and fighting overseas can now be shelled out for double bacon cheeseburgers, big screen TVs, three-quarter ton pickup trucks, smart phones, Legos sets, kitchen re-modelings, really big cups of soda in New York City, vacuous tattoos, frisbees, pre-mixed cocktails, trips to Graceland, and doggie pedicures.  And a lot of other stuff as well.  Giving peace a chance could be the best federal economic policy of the times.  Even though there surely will be ups and downs in the economy in the coming years, the peace dividend offers a powerful reason to hope for the best.

One and Done in Syria, Right? Right? . . . Come on, right?

Once upon a time, there were some nasty guys known as al Qaeda.  In August 1998, they bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.  Over 200 people were killed, including 12 Americans.  In order punish the baddies, President Clinton order cruise missile attacks on al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan which supposedly made chemical weapons.  Dozens of cruise missiles were fired and hit their targets.  After that, al Qaeda was never heard from again.

Unfortunately, the last part isn't true.  Al Qaeda, as we all know, survived in Afghanistan, killed some 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, and triggered wars that have turned out to be America's longest military conflicts.  Over 4,800 Americans died in Iraq, and more than 2,000 in Afghanistan.  American personnel are now engaged in fighting al Qaeda or its affiliates in South Asia, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, and who knows, maybe even Southeast Asia (there are Muslim insurgencies in Indonesia and the Philippines).   There is no end in sight for America's war against violent Islamic radicals.

President Obama and his supporters seem to think they can conducted a limited strike in Syria to punish Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons, and then be done with it.  Who are they kidding?  The bad guys in this scenario grow beards on the other cheek; they don't turn it.  Iran, Syria and Hezbollah are all promising retaliation if America launches cruise missiles.  Americans and American facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and probably other places are likely to be on the hit list.  American allies like Israel, Turkey, and other nations may be attacked.  Sooner or later, Assad or one of his allies will do something that will require further American action.  That's what happened with al Qaeda 15 years ago.  The 1998 cruise missile strikes on al Qaeda's training camps led to the 9/11 bombings, which then led to a war we're still fighting.

There is no chance--as in zero percent--that a U.S. cruise missile strike against Assad's forces will be the last word.  President Obama has yet to explain how he will deal with the many retaliatory responses from the bad guys, all without putting boots on the ground in some distant place and without entangling us in another endless war against people who can outlast us because it's their home.  In all likelihood, he has no explanation, because there is no way to contain America's involvement in Syria once we cruise in. 

As Americans know from hard experience, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and President Obama has the road we're now on very well paved.   Good intentions aren't the only thing that counts.  Competence and diligence matter, too.  You have to have a strategy to win--convincingly and quickly.  If you don't have such a strategy, don't dive into a war.  Ask the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam and the 4,800 who died in Iraq about this point.  There doesn't seem to be much strategic thinking going on in the White House; just political maneuvering in the hope of preventing the President from losing credibility for shooting from the hip.  Some of the U.S. troops in Afghanistan today were seven or eight years old at the time of the 9/11 bombings.  Today's parents of elementary school students should pay close attention to the discussion of U.S. military action in Syria.