Last night, on the heels of President Obama’s address to our nation, We Are Libertarians’ own Greg Lenz took to Twitter with an epic analysis (formatted for Tweets) of where President Obama was at. For those of you who missed it, I have since taken said Tweets and packaged them as succinctly as possible for the purposes of this article. Greg’s Tweets were as follows: – Joe
“I think the President is in an impossible situation. He purposefully misled the American public by failing to distinguish between Sunnis and Shias. It was a calculated choice. Driving ISIL out of the Middle East will not happen. Where else could they go? In 10 years would you rather fight an expansionist global caliphate or a guy like Assad? That’s the unfortunate choice. Foreign policy doesn’t get the benefit of a clean slate. In my opinion only two options exist:
1) Non-Intervention
2) Total War, but no ground forces. #UnmannedDroneStrikes
ISIL is not like Hamas or Hezbollah. We know where they are and what they want.
As a libertarian, our goal should be for each human to achieve self-created liberty. That newly formed and democratically elected Iraqi government should be given a chance. We should not support them in any other way than to essentially provide a protective shell for it to germinate.
Here’s the fine line the President is trying to walk:
1) Like it or not the United States is responsible for the success of ISIL.
2) By removing Saddam we created the environment that exists in Iraq and Syria today.
3) ISIL’s equipment was paid for the American taxpayer and given to Iraq’s Army.
4) We trained ISIL, al-Nusra Front, and the Free Syrian Army in Jordan so that they could defeat Basher Al Assad; Syria’s dictator.
5) Who is Assad’s biggest ally? Russia (Vladimir Putin).
6) Why? The Arab Gas Pipeline which supplies much of the Middle East.
7) If Assad falls, so does Russia’s monopoly on supplying Middle Eastern oil. It’s the same root cause as the Ukrainian conflict. Russia supplies oil to the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Putin wants to be able to control the flow.
8) President Obama can’t help Assad due to the fact he’s a tyrannical dictator who partners with Russia and gases his own citizens. So tonight he decides to fund and train the al-Nusra Front (Al Qaeda affiliate) and the Free Syrian Army; Freedom Fighters.
9) The hope they will defeat ISIL because they’ll be better funded and armed, but then they’ll turn their sights on Assad if they defeat ISIL with American backing as payback.
10) If this Hail Mary of Hail Mary’s works, the newly formed Iraqi government would hopefully turn into a semi-functioning inclusive democracy and Syria would follow suit after ousting Assad.
11) So Obama is praying that if this decision works, the Middle East would have two highly functioning democracies to pair with Turkey and Israel, and fundamental Islam is dealt a death blow via democracy building.
12) However, this doesn’t include the 3 major players in the region:
Saudi Arabia and Israel (Team America) vs. Iran… (Who are currently Team America but Russia and Syria’s allies). ISIL, if they had their way, would behead every Shi’ite Muslim (Iran) in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is already a Sharia State, but they aren’t expansionist like ISIL wants to be. In reality, there’s hardly any difference other than we made their leaders rich so they’re fat and happy.
13) If President Obama does not intervene, Sunni money will flood into the coffers of ISIL which will start an Islamic Civil War of epic proportions all over the world.
15) Inevitably Israel starts sweating just waiting for the two Muslim groups to set their sights on them. This triggers US involvement and draws us into war.
16) Keep in mind, ISIL is a movement, not a revolution.
17) Imagine a religiously fueled American Revolution with Southern Baptist Freedom Fighters and KKK members.
18) President Obama is betting the citizens of Iraq, predominantly Shia, will be willing to fight for self-governance and self-preservation.
19) ISIL is betting their religiously fueled movement will break the will of the Iraqi people.
20) So the President can sit it out and watch Russia gain more oil control and wait for Israel to draw us into a Muslim holy war.
21) He can drop bombs from the sky and do everything possible to help a fragile government develop in Iraq (outside of providing ground troops) and a dictator will be overthrown in Syria by backing rebels he’s praying won’t turn on him like ISIL did.
22) Total War: Total war is the best shot at human freedom in my opinion. We dropped 2 nuclear weapons on Japan. Last year 5.38 million Japanese cars were sold in the United States. We became the closest of allies because we broke the will of their people. 1.3 million German cars were sold in the US last year because we crushed the National Socialist Party in Germany. Again they became one of our closest allies because we decimated their very core beliefs.
These halfway wars are the least humane option and the worst for liberty. Either don’t intervene at all and pray to whatever you pray to that humans are in fact meant for self-governance. Or, pound someone so absolutely that they question their very existence and will to live.
If we were starting from scratch, I’d say non-intervention every time.
Alexander the Great defeated Darius so absolutely, the other tribes and monarchs in his path simply forfeited. It was also the last time Afghanistan was ruled.”
After reading Greg’s analysis, what do you think? Is he right? What should we do? Where should we go? Leave your opinions in the comments section below.
