What prevents the USA and the British from entering a full blown war in Iraq (again) against ISIS?

The people. We remember what happened last time, and would severely punish any government that dragged us back into that mess in the same capacity as we were in.

That said, there are boots on the ground in a non-combat role. Allied nations either have sent or are sending special forces to advise and train local fighters, as well as identifying and marking targets for the precision bombing raids. Many types of guided munitions only with with a guy on the ground with an infra-red strobe.

I don’t think ISIL operates with a single headquarters. Years of insurgency has surely taught them what a bad idea that is without air supremacy. They are most likely operating in a distributed manner, sending messengers to make anonymous phone calls to each other. That is how Bin Laden communicated, and how he was eventually caught, but it remains an effective technique.

One way or another, ISIL will be broken. However it will most likely remain a war fought through proxies such as the Kurdish Peshmerga unless there is a huge escalation from this already serious situation. The electorate just doesn’t have the stomach for another protracted war. We struggle to accept that this war is by its very nature unwinnable.

I don’t think it’s unwinnable, but Obama has to do something while not being compared to Bush. Tricky.

@KNOWITALL Obama shouldn’t be compared to Bush. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was under the pretence of WMDs, at least publicly. The war lost public support when WMDs weren’t found. People felt they had been mislead, even cheated. ISIL has issued a direct threat to the Western world, and as such no pretence is required. Obama has all the justification he needs to destroy ISIL, but the electorate is war-weary.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on how the war can be won. How does one defeat an ideology, when the enemy melts into the crowd once they are sufficiently weakened, only to re-emerge when they regain back door support from sectarian friends?

We have been there, done that, got the over-priced human life costly T-shirt. As soon as we kill and run off these assholes a new crop will surface. There are of course politics and foreign policy considerations. If we destabilize the region further it just gives them even more fertile ground to sow their evil oats.

The only thing (things) preventing the USA from entering another large war in the Middle East are vestiges of sense and the realization that the last two wars have done us no good, plus the belated realization of the fact that the previous wars have already run us faster down a road to economic ruin.

That’s not to say that those things will keep us from making another stupid mistake, but they’ve slowed us so far.

What prevents us? The fear we have of the “peacenicks” who believe everything can be solved by talking or bending over and grabbing the ankles to not get the enemy angry at us. Worrying more about how these people will vote stops what should just come naturally. Killing these murdering bastards NOW.

I know, I know, as usual it’s all Bushes fault…

Other than constitutional law and the requirement that Congress actually has to declare war?

I see at least two problems, and probably more:

1) I don’t trust Congress. What they will do is say “yes, we can pay for war, but only if you assent to the repeal of Obamacare”. Congress are bunch of single minded asses.

2) I’m not sure we have a well defined target. Can we really know the difference between Isis and the average Iraqi or Syrian on the street? You need only look back as recently as the Gaza-Hamas stuff three weeks ago – hamas hid in mosques and hospitals and schools to protect themselves. Do we know where ISIS is hiding and are we ready to take the heat for the deaths of kids and hospital patients?

3) If the local Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, Egypt, and so on) aren’t putting their money and men on the line, then I see no reason for us to,

International law (though that hasn’t stopped us in the past) and sanity. What good would it do? It would help bolster Assad who until recently was the number one bad guy and it will leave a huge ungoverned void in Iraq for which we would have assumed responsibility.

The will of the people.
Politics.
The huge cost in dollars and lives.

@FIremadeflesh That’s a question that’s been asked recently. The US military machine is undeniably powerful.

Civilians.

One reason for not declaring war is that we can’t define what victory in that war would look like. Playing wack-a-mole with terrorists is not a winning strategy.

@Bossob Obama specifically said they’re going after the financial supporters. That’ll probably give him targets.

How do you tell the good guys from the bad guys? If we go after ISIS then we help Assad. The same problem with Ukraine – Russia on one side and a rather nasty group on the other.

@KNOWITALL The US military is powerful in a conventional sense, but they still haven’t learned how to efficiently deal with asymmetric warfare. Hence why the WOT devolved into a series of never ending special forces raids.

The best approach is to let locals fight the ground war with our support and we can provide air dominance. The risk to us is minimal, the cost is less and it should get the results we want. Iraqis will be much better at distinguishing friend from foe, and any collateral damage will fall back on them and not us. That’s the power of diplomacy and joint international operations. As long as we are selective in our targeting, we should be able to minimize collateral damage.

You don’t want US soldiers on the ground there. It makes locals feel like they’re under occupation (even if we’re fighting on their side). Feeling occupied builds resentment and fuels sympathy for terrorist groups.

@gorillapaws I don’t usually do this but you had a really good, intelligent post.

@gorillapaws just said exactly what Obama said, nothing more, nothing less. Just sayin’.

@susanc
gorillapaws is talking about a big coalition of countries in the fight. Obama has none. Check out what countries actually said they would help us. England, Germany, France, Turkey and others have said “good luck guys but don’t count on us”. Bush had 70 countries on board in the begining of the Iraq war. Years later he was down to 35 countries on board. Obama talks a good talk but never follows through. we’ll see but I won’t be shocked at more beheading and violence while Obama is still “deciding”.

@BeenThereSaidThat I think you’ve underestimated the number of countries prepared to help out. Australia has committed 9 F/A 18s and 600 personnel, including SAS. Several Arab states have offered to help also. There may not be 70 countries, but it’s also a much more limited role this time.

@BeenThereSaidThat I’m pretty sure your wrong about the 70 countries thing. I recall only 4 for Iraq, which was a major part of the problem. We did have a broad amount of support for Afghanistan, but most countries thought we were too hasty with the WMD thing.

Yes I would like to see more regional support for this though. And I think it makes a big difference if westerners are on the ground in their country or not. Imagine how it would feel to go through daily TSA-style checkpoints just to go to work, buy groceries, etc that were being run by very suspicious, jumpy and armed Brazillians (just a random example) here in the US. No matter how good their intentions, you’d start to resent Brazil. We don’t need to put ourselves in that situation.

@BeenThereSaidThat and @gorillapaws, There were 40 countries that contributed troops to the Iraq war. Wikipedia so far lists 10 allied countries fighting ISIL, as well as others such as Iran, Syria, and Lebanon that are also fighting them.

@FireMadeFlesh Thanks for those Stats.