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This country's decision makers need adopt the Glass Doctrine. Before engaging in or escalating a conflict in the Middle East, ask if you are willing to, if pressed, kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people and turn the sand in those countries to glass through the sheer heat of atomic weapons. If the answer is no, do not get involved in that country, at least militarily.
You cannot fight a kind, gentle and antiseptic war in any part of the world, let alone the Middle East. The US military is primarily built to engage in direct conflict, crush the enemy and force a peace treaty on our terms. In the Middle East, the armed forces are amorphous and they are prudent enough to avoid direct confrontation. Prolonged counter insurgencies will inevitably lead to atrocities by soldiers against civilians as well as opportunities for a cheap IED or RPG to take down a few expensively trained and equipped soldiers and both of those things remove the political will to continue what feels less like a war and more of a drawn out and unnecessary colonial operation.
You cannot fight a kind, gentle and antiseptic war in any part of the world, let alone the Middle East. The US military is primarily built to engage in direct conflict, crush the enemy and force a peace treaty on our terms. In the Middle East, the armed forces are amorphous and they are prudent enough to avoid direct confrontation. Prolonged counter insurgencies will inevitably lead to atrocities by soldiers against civilians as well as opportunities for a cheap IED or RPG to take down a few expensively trained and equipped soldiers and both of those things remove the political will to continue what feels less like a war and more of a drawn out and unnecessary colonial operation.
