Iraq Round 3

When it comes to the pending third conflict in Iraq Glenn Beck seems to have done an about face from some of his past positions and suggests that we should not go back in there. We should not attempt to nation build, and past experience shows that we aren’t very successful at it. We should stay out of their growing civil war, and now he even admits that he no longer thinks we should have gone to Iraq under President Bush. This is not our fight; we do not have a right to foist Democracy on them, or even freedom. I think he is right that we don’t have any business there and we don’t have any obligation to Iraq, except for one thing. We released the leader of ISIL, Abu Bakr al-Baghdad from our custody back onto their streets to help mastermind this terror that has been unleashed on them.

We had him in jail and then we released him. The moment we had Al-Baghdadi in our custody, he became our responsibility. And how did we take responsibility for him? We didn’t. We let him go back onto the battlefield of Iraq, with the parting words, “I’ll see you guys in New York.”

Now I don’t think we owe Iraq stability. I don’t even know if that is humanly possible. Nor do I think we owe them to end this civil war. What we do owe them is to take responsibility for Al-Baghdadi and the other terrorists that we decided to release from our custody back into their neighborhoods. That can be done by re-capturing them or by killing them. I say go with whichever option is more feasible. If the insurgents keep coming and the Iraqi government can’t stop them after we have taken Al-Baghdadi out of the picture than that is on Iraq.

Now, in my opinion that is what we owe Iraq, simply to clean up the trash that we littered their streets with. But, is there anything that we owe ourselves in relation to the latest Iraqi crisis? Senator Marco Rubio makes a pretty convincing case that there is. When an Islamic radical says they will harm America I take them at their word, and that is what Al-Baghdadi implied as he left our custody. The end-game is not taking over Iraq. It is a Caliphate. One that will eventually go worldwide, and result in the end of all infidels, either by death or conversion, or at the very least complete submission to the dominant version of Sharia. When do we want to fight that battle, and on what battle ground?

My final thought on Iraq and all of the other conflicts around the world that the United States is involved in is a question posed by a very clever man to a very wise man, “And who is my neighbor?” In today’s globalized world full of options for instant, cheap communication across continents, who is our neighbor? Is the United States treating any other nation like our neighbor at this point? How would that even look? I know that answer is far clearer when it comes to individual relationships than when comes to national ones. Perhaps that is where we should focus our attention. If we can’t figure out how to be a good neighbors to those who cross our path, either online or in person, than we can’t have a realistic expectation of our nation becoming a good neighbor in its community.