President Obama faces ISIS

September 11, 2001 is a grim date that gives Americans the shivers. The date reminds them of the horror attack that al-Qaeda launched against their nation. On September 10, 2014, almost 13 years after that terror attack, President Obama appeared on prime time television to deliver a speech. It was obvious that he would say something about terrorism. Yes, he did. But he was not as bellicose as Bush was after the 9/11 attacks. Of course, the present situation is nowhere near the gruesome condition that prevailed when Bush faced an unprecedented act of international terrorism.
This time Obama put the finger on ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) or IS (Islamic State), a band of extremists now operating in Syria and Iraq, unleashing a new war of terrorism against non-Muslims, more specifically against the non-Sunnis.
President Obama carefully avoided the word 'war' while he was explaining about his efforts against ISIS. He does not want his nation to face the kind of wars his predecessors had launched, sending American ground troops in far-flung foreign lands and then bringing home their dead bodies.
Obama in his television address has made it clear that his administration is not going to involve American combat troops in fighting on foreign soil. He would rather use warplanes and drones to punish the terrorists by remote controllers.
America, at least during Obama presidency, will avoid fighting a war like those that had been fought in Iraq on two occasions. The fight against ISIS will be more like the American effort against terrorists in Yemen and Somalia where drones, intelligence, and limited special operations successfully chipped away at enemies without exposing ground combat troops to the risks of conventional battles. American warplanes and drones have already been pounding ISIS positions with a good measure of success.
The majority of Americans seems to be fed up with sending their boys and girls to foreign countries to fight a war, no matter what.
Wherever there is a conflict outside America that has a chance to spread or affect American interests Americans want that the countries in the region should be the first to intervene, not America. America can help, but indirectly, at the lowest cost possible. Cost of oil from the Middle East, they reckon, has already become too high with each dollar invested in U.S. military actions added to the cost of each barrel of oil received.
President Obama knows about high costs of military involvement resulting from the ways his country had played the games of intervention wars in the Middle East in the past decades and understands what American people really care about. He is going to implement a low-cost and long-term approach aimed at securing American strategic interest in the Middle East. Burned by the bitter experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan he is determined to make a major change in the strategic approach employed by the U.S. in the Middle East. He is not going to listen to those who advocate a costly involvement that would drag American ground forces unnecessarily into a conflict outside of American borders.
Getting out of the nasty bloodbaths in Iraq and Afghanistan was what Obama had entered the White House to do.  Even sending warplanes or drones to the Middle East or to Africa was not what Barack Obama had envisioned for his presidency. He did not wish to see his hands or his foreign policy stained with human blood. Obama, like no other American president in history, was avidly committed to not deepening his country's involvement in the Middle East. He is deeply aware of, and inclined to avoid, the pitfalls of his predecessors who were sucked into wars. But he now seems to be inching towards the paths that he tried so hard to avoid.
The threat posed by the rise of the radical jihadists in Syria and Iraq has proven for him too great to ignore. Plus, the deaths of two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, have incited public attention all over the world. The threat of IS/ISIS to establish their fanciful caliphate has also created a strategic threat not only to America but also to the entire world.
There are nihilistic American people who out of sheer desperation would love to say: "Arabs are adult. So, leave them to their own ways. Violence and turmoil in the Middle East are to remain a part of their life as has been there in one form or another over the centuries. It doesn't matter whether ISIS Sunni forces or the Iran-backed Shiite forces control some parts of the Middle East, or whether they slaughter and kill each other off. So long as the conflict in the Middle East doesn't add to the price of oil shipped to the West and so long as the West can obtain oil and other resources it needs from that area of the world Americans should not care about what the local populations do to one another. It is their graveyards to fill. If they enjoy their bloody contests, leave them alone and keep the oil flowing."
But the Middle East cannot be left at the hands or to the whims of the wheeler-dealers like ISIS who hate humanity. Stability in the Middle East is vital for America and the rest of the world for its oil resources. Before alternative sources of energy are available at regions outside the Arab World, Middle Eastern oil resources are very much needed to keep global economic machines running at an acceptable cost level.
President Obama is right to identify ISIS as a brutal and dangerous terrorist fighting force that threatens the world.  He rightly asserted that ISIS is neither Islamic nor a state.
ISIS is undeniably a nasty group that no country can or should support. ISIS acts in the name of Islam as do many other terrorist groups, and their goal is to establish and expand a ridiculous Islamist State that they wish to call a caliphate.  They have however been frighteningly successful to that end, seizing vast stretches of land and major cities in Syria and Iraq, and amassing more money and resources than any other terrorist organisation on earth. The so-called 'Islamic State' or ISIS may not pose an immediate threat to the world. But its exponential expansion in Syria and Iraq suggests its lethality to any country in the Middle East at this moment and to the rest of the world at a later date.
Left unchecked, ISIS may gain strength to conquer Iraq, extend its tentacles to Syria and Lebanon, and advance against Jordan and Saudi Arabia.  Gaining such a regional dominance the next logical step for them may be to proceed towards Turkey and eventually towards Europe and USA. ISIS has already expressed their desire to attack Europe and USA.
The United States along with its coalition forces has to thwart ISIS - with or without boots on the ground. But, at the same time America should bear in mind that the threat to regional and global stability and U.S. interests is not posed by the Islamic State alone but by other extremist groups here and there.
Obama may hope to stall ISIS from further advance by American drone attacks for the time being. But there is a possibility for ISIS to evolve into a legitimate voice for the Sunnis in Syria and Iraq if the Iraqi government does not take concrete actions to become more inclusive.
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