On February 22, well-known realist scholar and R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago John Mearsheimer spoke at USC in a talk titled “Liberal Dreams & International Realities.”

Glimpse correspondents had the rare chance to interview the celebrated scholar, getting his insight on the challenges facing US foreign policy as the world transitions from a unipolar order based on liberal hegemony to a multipolar one in which realpolitik will play a much larger role. Mearsheimer addressed weighty issues like NATO expansion, nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea, the influence of US foreign policy elites, the hypocrisies of liberal American foreign policy, and the rise of China.

The full video is available here.

As of late January 2017, the US-backed Iraqi forces have declared Eastern Mosul liberated from the grasp of the Islamic State. Mosul has been a key stronghold of the Islamic State since its capture in 2014, providing revenue in the form of oil money and taxation of its over six hundred thousand inhabitants, as well as giving credit to the Islamic State’s claims to be the chosen successors of the Caliphate.

As Mosul’s fall to Iraqi forces seems imminent, the fate of the Islamic State seems at hand. The mosque from which Abu Bakr-Al Baghdadi made the proclamation of the establishment of his Islamic Caliphate has been in sight of Iraqi forces for weeks. Progress has been slow, but the end is in sight as Syrian, Turkish, Kurdish, and Iraqi forces press in against the Islamic State. As the IS loses cities and strongholds such as Ramadi, Sinjar, and Palmyra, it loses its credibility and reputation, making it ever more difficult for it to defend its territory. Soon it seems, the Islamic State will be forced to end its existence as a quasi-stat.

However, the end of the Islamic State as a quasi-state actor does not mean the end of its significance. Many believe that the increased pressure on the centralized mechanism of the IS (Islamic State) in Syria and Iraq will lead to a decentralization of the organization, as it loses the capability to run an international organization and reverts to multiple chapters of autonomous groups. While the capture of Mosul is important in the eventual downfall of the Islamic State, it is important for the world to adapt its strategy to counter the evolving threat it will continue to represent.

One of the capabilities which makes the Islamic State such a threat is its ability to conduct operations across the globe. By utilizing operatives who get in contact with potential radical terrorists, the IS has been able to claim credit for various terror attacks with little involvement beyond the “mentors” who instruct potential terrorists on how and where to carry out the most effective strikes. The central state has enhanced this threat by tying these operations to a uniform propaganda message. IS propaganda has led to a mass wave of recruitment, and the Islamic State successfully cultivated for itself an image as the savior of the Islamic community. While the state collapses, this uniform message is being lost. But the chapters of the Islamic State that have been established from West Africa to Malaysia will persist.

Many of these chapters were formerly independent, such as Boko Haram in West Africa and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. While it has been beneficial for them to be linked to the main body of the Islamic State, many of these groups had been operating for many years independently, and would have no problems continuing to do so if the IS falls. Despite the claims of the IS propaganda machine, these groups operate mostly autonomously, paying mostly lip service to the central body in the Levant.  To eliminate the threat of extremist Islamic terrorism, the world must begin to address root causes, rather than simply eliminating the symptoms.

The rise of extremist terrorist groups in the Middle East can be attributed to a few fundamental factors: disillusionment with western ideas, ineffective and corrupt government, and nongovernment entities armed by regional powers to further their agendas. The idea of the nation state is originally a European invention, and since its introduction to the Middle East, conditions have generally worsened for the people living there. This feeds into extremist propaganda which poses states as a tool to separate the Islamic community to enable exploitation by Western interests. The sectarian governance of leaders like Syria’s Al-Assad or the former Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki reinforced the criticism by instituting nepotistic, decadent and corrupt governments which look out for one demographic, to the detriment of other groups. These issues might be manageable if it weren’t for the support for extremist groups delivered by both the Saudis and the Iranians to push for their dominance over the region. In Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, money and military supplies flood sectarian militias who promise to support an Iranian or Saudi agenda.

Saudi and Iranian funding for militias is part of each nation’s plan to attempt to oust the other from the region and assert hegemony as the supreme power in the region. Since the rise of the Shia Islamic Republic in Iran, Iran has supported Shia militias to replace the current governments with more Iran-friendly regimes. Saudi Arabia, as the primary Sunni power in the region, seeks to oppose this. Since 2011 and the Arab Spring, instability in the region increased significantly, and so too did opportunities for Iran and Saudi Arabia to gain power. The conflicts in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen all can be classified as proxy conflicts between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

To solve these problems, the West need to incentivize Middle-Eastern governments to govern for the benefit of their own people. They can do this by giving conditional aid to governments, based on effective democratization, fair elections, representation and protection of minority groups, and fair governance. Further, to eliminate foreign aid to militant groups in the Middle East, the West needs to be tougher on regional powers who benefit from instability in the region. By instituting sanctions, suspending aid, or applying diplomatic pressure the West can exert impressive amounts of pressure for regional Central Asian powers to end their support for militant groups which create so much of the instability in the Middle East. Without the support of outside countries, many of these militias will lose their teeth, and find it significantly more difficult to undermine governments as well as conduct terrorist attacks.

If the West continues to ignore these factors, the threat of extremist terrorism in the Middle East will not subside.  The sacrifices made over the past decades will be futile and in a few years, we will be dealing with new, but familiar instability once again. The world must turn its attention to the real causes of chaos in the region and work hard to find pragmatic solutions to the root causes of sectarian violence in the Middle East.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

If history has taught us anything beyond that conflict is inevitable, it’s that wars often prove self-correcting. In other words, a particular war can be so devastating that the pendulum then necessarily swings in the direction of peace and non-intervention. However, drone warfare—the warfare currently a la mode—is so much less visible and costly to its perpetrators, that it stands as a stark exception. Far from correcting itself, it seemingly has the capacity to self-perpetuate. The invention and proliferation of drone use might have made war too easy.

After the trauma of World War II, European countries realized continental integration may be the solution to mitigating the radical nationalism that had devastated the region. This led to the 1948 Hague Congress, and the creation of the European Movement International and the College of Europe, precursors of the European Union. After the French colonial wars in Algeria and Indochina proved significantly harder and bloodier for France than anticipated, referendums for independence were granted quickly—without conflict—to all remaining French colonies. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was so destructive that it left in its wake an international understanding nuclear weapons should never again be used and, despite  their proliferation, they never have been. The Vietnam War triggered a more inward-looking America, reluctant to engage in costly intervention overseas.

Each case reflects the impact of popular fatigue with, and apprehension towards, any war after experiencing a particularly scarring one, in turn making a democratically-elected government more reluctant to engage in conflict for fear of losing popularity. Like European populations after World War II and French citizens after the colonial wars, the war in Iraq had this effect on the American public, which witnessed the considerable human and material costs of ill-considered foreign intervention.

The graph below depicts this phenomenon. In 2002, right before the invasion of Iraq, only 30% of US citizens agreed that the US should mind its own business internationally; this coincides perfectly with the fact that in 2002, only 32% of US citizens thought invading Iraq was a mistake. But almost immediately following the invasion, both those numbers began to increase. By 2013, 52% of US citizens wanted a more isolationist agenda, and 53% thought the war in Iraq was a mistake.

That those numbers essentially match reflects the impact of the Iraq War on public attitudes toward outside intervention. American citizens had begun to look at foreign policy solely through the lens of the Iraq war, and were thus far less interventionist.

But the post-Iraq era has been marked by a paradox—popular opinion opposes foreign intervention (hence the more passive attitude towards Syria and President Obama’s decision to resist calls for intervention), but drone warfare has risen dramatically.

Post-Iraq anxiety and war-weariness has failed to limit this particular form of warfare: in a New York Times article, Micah Zenko, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, was quoted as saying that “an average of separate counts of American drone strikes by three organizations, the New America Foundation, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Long War Journal, finds that 522 strikes have killed 3,852 people” since the Obama administration came into office. This is no “non-interventionist” policy.

No wars end all wars. But the speed with which we have transitioned from war-fatigue to war-footing is troubling, and it’s because drone warfare is different. Unlike in the past, with drone warfare there is no self-correction; no inherent ceiling or reason to believe the appeal will drop and the pendulum will swing back again.

War is meant to be difficult and costly; in fact, its difficulty and cost–in terms of lives lost, money expended, political capital expended–are the primary motives for deterrence. Drones have managed to essentially nullify these “inconveniences”. US lives are spared when unmanned drone-strikes are used rather than troop deployment, and targeted drone-strikes don’t come close to the fiscal costs of staging an Iraqi-style intervention. But it’s the last cost–the cost of political capital–that is probably at once the least talked about, and the most important.

General public angst and rejection of wars after a specifically disturbing one generally mean that a President and his administration notice and heed this ideological shift, and thus refrain from conflict, for the sake of re-election and public approval.

This novel and more sterile form of warfare explains another paradox: US popular stance on American foreign policy and their view of Obama’s job performance are directly at odds with one another. While polls indicate a continual increase in Obama’s approval rating, they have also shown a continuously growing reluctance to intervene abroad—all while large-scale drone use has expanded.

Though there are certainly other factors at work (Obamacare, economic growth, decrease in unemployment, etc. all could have contributed to the increasing approval rating), it is still hard to square Obama’s approval rating rising in parallel to his rising drone use despite growing non-interventionist popular sentiment. This in fact illustrates another way in which drones have made war easier to wage: it has allowed the governments to engage in covert warfare without much public recognition or understanding of the conflict.

Recently, persistent calls for transparency led the administration to release data on the number of civilian casualties from drone-strikes. The administration reported at least 64 innocent casualties (and at most 116). But this statistic fell far short of every single other thorough research report published by independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit organizations, with some extending up to at the very least 500 civilian casualties, demonstrating the real lack of public transparency in the US drone-program.

President Obama oversaw the historic Iran nuclear deal, began the process of lifting the embargo on Cuba, and withdrew tens of thousands of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. By almost any measure, he has been a strong foreign policy president, resisting the impulse to send troops abroad, and trusting in the good sense of the American people.

Which is precisely why this isn’t an attack on Obama’s presidency, nor on the use of drones in general. Drone-use is not inherently evil; to the contrary, in most respects its use has proved remarkably efficient in combating terrorists without risking hundreds of American lives, destroying or destabilizing entire countries, or generating an even greater number of innocent victims. But therein lies the problem. The proliferation of military drone-strikes may have just made war too easy. It was the tremendous, palpable cost of World War II, the French colonial wars, the bombing of Japan or the Vietnam War that prompted public wariness of conflict in the respective countries, thereby pushing the governments towards peace and non-intervention, at least temporarily. If war’s ceiling–the level at which a population yells “No More!”–is removed, then the pendulum will cease its backward swing. The price of drone warfare is invisible to those who prosecute it, while destructively tangible to those on its receiving end. It’s for this reason we must make sure not to remove war’s ceiling.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

As the United States teeters on the edge of its third invasion of Iraq in three decades, most recently sending 450 advisors to aid the Baghdad government, the situation in-country isn’t pretty. ISIS stalks the borderlands of the Levant and Mesopotamia, while its primary opponents, the Iraqi Shiites, are bankrolled and advised by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.  This already puts the United States between a rock and a hard place. But further factors – from the raging war in neighboring Syria to the broad regional competition between the Sunni monarchies and Iran to the currently-underway Iranian nuclear deal – make for a more complicated situation in the Middle East than any in recent memory. The American position amidst all this – strapped as it is on all sides, constrained by contradictory commitments and limits – is even more mind-boggling.

The American public doesn’t know quite what to make of this mess. Think tanks, academics and policymakers don’t seem to have any constructive ideas on a way forward, so discussion of “what’s going on” usually devolves into a game of finger-pointing.

Partisan Republicans blame the ongoing chaos on President Obama and his relative dovishness, restraint and inaction. To them, Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech was hopeless pandering to the Muslim world at best, and shameful apologizing at worst. They see the President’s single-minded focus on a (weak) nuclear deal with Iran as appeasement. Worse, they believe the President to have sold out on crucial allies, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia. The President’s gradual withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan they consider a resignation to defeat, surrendering a noble cause.

Partisan Democrats place their blame further back, on President Bush and his reckless militarism, trigger-happy attitude and crusading zeal for democracy promotion. To many, the War in Afghanistan was potentially justified, had it ended after the defeat of the Taliban. But the War in Iraq was either foolish adventurism or evil incarnate—the first stage of an aggressive American empire, or otherwise a greedy machination to secure oil supplies. More importantly, President Bush’s insistence on democracy promotion in Iraq and Afghanistan by the sword, and in other Middle Eastern countries by political pressure, was seen as an affront to the rights of those societies. Democrats tend to think President Bush started something he didn’t need to start, for all the wrong reasons.

As is the case with most political debates and indeed most historical ones, both perspectives contain elements of truth. Bush’s reckless bravado did in fact lead us into an unwinnable war, because the goals we set were impossible to attain. Obama’s reluctance to demonstrate American military power did indeed allow rival powers like ISIS and Iran to hack out domains for themselves in which they could operate with impunity, unmolested by American strength. But neither narrative tells a fully convincing story.

So here’s my take on it.

Ever since the First Gulf War in 1991, we were bound to wind up invading Iraq again sooner or later. Saddam Hussein was simply too unstable—we would never be able to trust him to act predictably. The US airstrikes on Iraq ordered by President Clinton throughout the 1990s were made in response to Saddam’s barbarism against the northern Kurds and his willingness to bend the regional balance of power.

Come the early 2000s and the War on Terror, Saddam was not, in fact, supplying weapons to terrorists, or anything of the kind. In fact, his Ba’ath Party was a wholly secular institution—the Wahhabis in al-Qaeda were his rivals. Nonetheless, an Iraqi WMD would be unacceptable for the US, not because the regime might give it to terrorists but because it would immensely change the geopolitical dynamic in the Middle East. The Saudis, Turks, Egyptians and Iranians would soon pursue nukes of their own—and the Saudis and Iranians were known to have close working relations with different groups of jihadist terrorists.

Because we perceived that Saddam would soon become more powerful, we invaded. (Much of the credit goes to the then-powerful neoconservatives in the President’s circle, too; but even had Al Gore then been President, the impetus to attack Saddam would have been strong, for strategic reasons).

I think invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein was a sensible policy, justifiable on strategic grounds. Saddam had proven himself to be irrational and aggressive, an unacceptable combination in a region through which a significant portion of the world’s energy supplies flowed. We needed him out.

That said, the conduct of Operation Iraqi Freedom was an embarrassment to strategic studies and political theory, not to mention to the US Military. When we went in with something like a third of the troops top generals recommended, we went in unprepared. When we declared that our mission was to turn Iraq into something we would recognize as a functioning liberal democracy, we bit off more than we could chew. And when we assumed that we could attain that transformation by the sword, we set off a rabid insurgency and civil war that killed 4,000 American soldiers and countless more Iraqis. The conduct of the war was a disaster in almost every sense.

It seems that Bush realized his blunders, though, as his Presidency waned. Gone were the annunciations of impending democratic transition, and in were the enterprising generals who practiced revised counterinsurgency strategies. By the aftermath of the Surge of 2007-2008, the civil war had died down and order, the prerequisite of political institutions, was beginning to become a norm. Sunni and Shiite militias both joined us in the fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq and radical militias. The Iraqi people were becoming a nation. We weren’t winning, but we were creating a strategic reality more amenable to our interests.

As the occupation drew on, President Bush left and President Obama entered the Oval Office and, sticking true to his campaign pledges, began reducing the US military presence in Iraq. By 2010 the formal US military presence had been removed from the country, although thousands of advisors remained.

Over the years, the sectarian violence returned and Iraq’s new governing institutions decayed into insignificance. The US-backed Iraqi military did what it could, but it was largely inept in the face of newly radicalizing militant groups. Everything we had fought to build and protect in the Second Gulf War was destroyed; because we left, and because chaos and insurgency returned, we lost the second round of warfare in Iraq.

The third round is brewing; its initial stages began right after we lost the second. Islamist fighters from the war in Syria spilled over the border, and one group in particular – the Islamic State in Iraq – built up its power until it grew strong enough to challenge the Iraqi government head on. Shortly after it declared a caliphate, it began its psychological warfare campaign of social media-publicized beheadings and dramatic, sweeping assaults on government forces, and the Western media began referring to it as “ISIS”. The US responded incrementally, much as it did in Vietnam—a few airstrikes here, some advisors there, now a Special Forces raid and national public statements whenever the public recoiled aghast at some magnificent slaughter or execution.

President Obama has been reluctant to intervene more decisively against ISIS in Iraq, knowing that the US public has no appetite for a third war in the cradle of civilization. He has hoped that the neighboring states whose interests are more directly threatened – Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Iran – would rise to the problem themselves. And they are doing so to a degree. But it remains doubtful whether the final end result of their action will be acceptable to American interests, especially if the Iranians carve out a greater sphere of influence in Iraq and the Sunni states bolster funding to radical Sunni militias to curtail Iranian power. President Obama’s inaction, hesitancy to project US power, and lack of a coherent vision for American policy in the Middle East has allowed regional players to roam about freely and create a scenario roundly hostile to US interests.

At the moment, though, President Obama does seem to be stepping up his game and taking (slightly) more assertive action against ISIS in Iraq. It is not enough yet; but perhaps once the deal with Iran has been reached, he will dedicate more effort to finding a strategic solution for Iraq. It seems clear that deeper US involvement – and far more importantly, wiser US strategic thinking – will be necessary to carve an acceptable endgame in Iraq in particular and the Middle East in general. With luck, Obama or his successor can make the intervention swift and effective, with long-lasting results.

I don’t have a clue what the winning strategy for Iraq might be, and I hope some strategic thinker comes out with one soon. It would most likely involve a splitting-up of Iraq into smaller units, including an independent Kurdistan, and a complete extermination of ISIS’s military forces. The coming deal with Iran will entrench the mullahs’ strategic position, so we would be wise to balance against that by removing Bashar as-Assad in Syria and replacing him with a moderate Sunni regime in Damascus. We would also be wise to continue building up our relations with the Sunni kingdoms, especially our strained relationship with Saudi Arabia—with no large buffer between the Sunni states and Iran, it may be time to beef them up in ways previously unthinkable, perhaps including a permanent forward military presence in Iraq not unlike those we maintain in Europe and Japan.

So who is to “blame” for Iraq?

Both President Bush and President Obama are to blame for the loss of the Second Iraq War. Bush doomed the mission from the start by setting the bar too high and acting recklessly; Obama abjectly surrendered the cause to fate (and American public opinion) in the complete withdrawal of US troops. While Obama’s was more direct and Bush’s more egregious, both errors equally contributed to our defeat.

However, both Bush and Obama learned from their mistakes. Bush began to pursue a more prudent strategy in his second term, while Obama has been less averse to using military force in his later second term. Perhaps there would have been a better outcome if Bush had learned to be a fox earlier, and if Obama learns to be a lion soon. Ultimately it was too late for either to correct their mistakes before time ran out; we can only hope that President Obama’s successor pursues a prudent and firm strategy from the very beginning.

We won Iraq I resoundingly, and we surrendered Iraq II. Iraq III has already begun, as American airstrikes, Special Forces activity and the lily-pad bases now dotting the country demonstrate. There has been no full-fledged invasion, but Americans again go to war in the land between the rivers. It’s increasingly starting to look like Lyndon Johnson’s slow, quiet and public opinion-minded escalation of American involvement in Vietnam.

This will not do—we have a quagmire waiting to happen, a whirlpool waiting to suck in the lives of thousands more American troops. Deeper American involvement in Iraq is unavoidable, contrary to General Dempsey’s claims, but we should make it as effective and decisive as possible so as to save the most blood and treasure while winning the best strategic reality. That means that the next President of the United States has to look clear-eyed at the world, and the Middle East in particular, and determine what strategic reality he wants to leave for his successor. Then he or she must do everything in their power to make that situation a reality—and with luck, that situation will be a stable Middle East with a healthy balance of power maintained by prudent American statecraft. Victory in Iraq is an integral component of a more secure Middle Eastern peace, but victory will be unattainable until we define our objectives for the Middle East moving forward. Just beating ISIS doesn’t cut it.

Were it not for the Middle East’s geostrategic position between Europe and Asia and its vast oil supplies to those continents, perhaps we could ignore it with the leisure with which we ignore Sub-Saharan Africa. But we can’t. As protectors of the liberal international order, we have vital interests in the Middle East that aren’t about to go away. Our duty as a superpower will continue to draw us into the Persian Gulf until Europe and Asia no longer run on oil, or else until we can establish a relatively stable regional order like that which existed from 1945 to 1979. Until then, periodic regional war will be the norm. We must win Iraq III decisively, and create a successful new strategic reality in the Middle East, if we are to preclude an Iraq IV.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

In a move that shook the world for more than a few diplomats, Reuters recently published an exclusive investigative report claiming that on at least two occasions in 2013 and 2014, Turkey supplied lethal aid to Syrian rebels, including Islamist groups, and that at least some of that aid later ended up in the hands of the Islamic State (IS) and other jihadist units operating over the border in Syria. The May 21 report cited a Turkish prosecutor and court testimony from Turkish gendarmerie officers who searched trucks escorted by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (called Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı, or MIT). The Reuters investigation appears to have taken several months, if not over a year. The local police and gendarmerie alleged that the MIT was caught covertly supplying weaponry to areas of Syria controlled by Islamist rebels on two occasions, in November 2013 and January 2014. Since then, the prosecutors and over 30 officers who searched the MIT trucks have been charged by the Turkish federal government with crimes ranging from carrying out an illegal search to revealing state secrets, military espionage and attempting to overthrow the government of Turkey.

Exactly whose hands these weapons ended up in remains uncertain. At the time, the Syrian territory closest to where the shipments were discovered was under the control of Ahrar al-Sham. This hardline Salafist group was then led by Abu Omair al-Ahamy, who was a known associate of al Qaeda leaders including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Shamy was killed in Aleppo in February 2014.

Ibrahim Kalin, the official spokesperson for Turkish President Erdogan, recited to Reuters the oft-repeated official statement that “Turkey has never sent weapons to any group in Syria.” But as the Reuters report suggests, there is ample evidence to the contrary. Additionally, the MIT has the support of President Erdogan. When questioned on the incident last August during a television interview, he commented that “You can’t search an MIT truck, you have no authority.” He further claimed the trucks were carrying humanitarian aid to Turkmen communities.

But according to Reuters, Turkey was supplying lethal aid to rebels in Syria, which begs the question: Whose side is Turkey on?

Regardless of what the trucks in question were carrying or where they were sending their supplies, there can be no doubts that President Erdogan is juggling conflicting foreign policy interests while preparing for the upcoming general election on June 7. Turkey straddles the Bosporus Strait, and is geographically part of both Europe and the Middle East. Many of NATO’s European members are heavily focused on the Ukrainian crisis, their energy security and the financial state of the EU. All of these things are problematic for Turkey, NATO’s southeastern anchor. But lately, Turkey’s focus has been largely on the Syrian civil war that continually ravages Syrian and Iraqi lands south of Turkey’s long Anatolian border. The primary objective for the Turks in this conflict so far has been to maintain their own territorial sovereignty. Given the strength of the Turkish military and stability of the government in Ankara, this has not been much of an issue. The core of Turkey lies in the northwest, in the area surrounding Istanbul and Ankara. The rugged Anatolian landscape serves as a significant buffer between Turkey’s population centers and the chaos swirling in the Arab lands to the south.

The only recent threat to Turkish sovereignty involved the tomb of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of Ottoman Empire founder Osman I, which was located on the bank of the Euphrates River in Syria, about 30 kilometers south of the Turkish border. Shah’s tomb has long been guarded by a platoon-sized element of Turkish soldiers, and Shah’s burial site is considered Turkish sovereign soil. As IS approached the area in February, the decision was made to exhume the remains of Suleyman Shah and move them to a new location in order to avoid a large-scale confrontation between IS fighters and the Turkish guards. On February 22, the Turkish military conducted the operation, bringing home the contingent of guards in a rapidly executed rescue mission. Suleyman Shah now resides in a new, temporary tomb. It is still in Syria, but now less than 200 meters from the Turkish border. The Assad regime naturally condemned the operation as a violation of Syria’s territorial sovereignty.  But the Assad regime has no interest in fighting Turkey over such a relatively trivial matter, and Turkey is not willing to join the melee just to take down Assad. What’s more important is that the Suleyman Shah incident highlights a continuation of the Turkish government’s non-confrontational policy towards the Islamic State.

Back in October of last year, the city of Kobani came under siege from IS forces. The city lies on the Syrian side of the Turkish-Syrian border and is (or was) inhabited predominantly by Kurds, who also populate a large swath of eastern Turkey. Much to the chagrin of Kurds in the area, the Turkish government stationed tanks on the border in a firm stance against any violent spillover, but did nothing to assist the besieged Kurds militarily. Given the uneasy and often violent history between Ankara and the Kurdish people, this was not much of a surprise. While Erdogan could have scored major points with the Kurdish minority in Turkey by intervening, he was unwilling to make Turks the target of the Islamic State’s brutality or Assad’s barrel bombs. As a result, Turkey stood back and watched while keeping Anatolia secure.

For its part, the Islamic State has not conducted any major operations in Turkey. IS has been expanding in two ways. First, it has been expanding its influence by supporting small cells located throughout the Middle East. Second, it has been gaining the loyalties of more distant, well-known terrorist groups in Asia and Africa, most notably Nigeria’s Boko Haram, which pledged allegiance to IS in March. But IS activity in Turkey has been largely limited to recruiting, since many jihadists enter the Syrian battlefields from across the lengthy Turkish border. An uneasy truce between the Islamic State and Turkey can be observed; both want the Assad regime to fall. Since IS has no air force, a Turkish no-fly zone is no threat to them—they would actually gain mobility from the absence of Syrian aerial attacks.

Meanwhile, the Turks have not actively participated in anti-IS coalition airstrikes led by the US and its Western and Gulf allies, launched in September 2014. Turkey is, however, home to a US air base. When the airstrikes began, Erdogan voiced support for the operations, which targeted the al-Qaeda aligned Khorasan group and IS targets in both Syria and Iraq. He stated that Turkey could provide “military or logistical” support for the operation, leaving the door open to future involvement.

Turkey doesn’t have a favorite in the Syrian conflict so much as it has a least favorite  – the Assad regime – whose actions are responsible for the countless Syrian refugees who have fled to Turkey. For Ankara, anyone who wants to depose Assad is welcome to do so. The Islamic State is the most powerful actor besides the regime in Syria, so Turkey won’t impede any IS activities. But Ankara also knows from the Islamic State’s rhetoric and operations throughout the Middle East that its ultimate goal is to create an all-encompassing caliphate. That too would be unacceptable for Turkey, but the prospect of a pan-Islamic caliphate is a long way off. So far, IS has only posed a significant threat to the sovereignty of weak and failing states, and doesn’t have the operational prowess to make territorial gains in more stable countries like Turkey or Saudi Arabia.

Besides the Islamic State, every other rebel faction is out to get rid of Assad as well. These groups range in ideology, practices and strength from the secular, US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) to jihadist groups to ethnic Kurdish militias. Many of these groups find themselves in conflict over incompatible ideologies and long-standing feuds. These smaller groups also tend to find themselves pinched between regime forces in the east and IS strongholds in the west of Syria. The medley of smaller militant groups are Turkey’s best options to use as proxy forces in Syria, and many are in dire need of military assistance.

In deciding whom to support, Turkey must turn west and juggle the concerns of its European and American partners, whose attention is divided between the Middle East, Ukraine and tensions in the South China Sea. While Turkey may see the Islamic State as a lesser evil than the Assad regime, its NATO partners disagree. The US, its Gulf partners and Israel do not want to see the Islamic State supplant Assad and rule all of Syria. For the US, it is better to have a Syria divided among evildoers and to focus instead on keeping the Baghdad regime intact. There are no good options right now in Syria for the US or its European partners. The West’s preferred politically moderate, secular rebel forces have been holding a weak hand for a long time now in Syria, and providing them with lethal aid means undertaking the risk that those supplies could fall into terrorist hands. Publicly taking sides with the Assad regime to oppose terrorism is still morally and politically untenable among NATO members. Letting the civil war continue unabated is actually the best of all these bad strategic options.

Western powers find themselves doing four things under US leadership: 1) giving parcels of aid to refugee camps in Jordan, Syria and elsewhere, 2) bombing the least desirable jihadist elements in an effort to maintain the current balance of chaos in Syria, 3) preventing terrorist attacks outside the region, and 4) attempting to preserve a semblance of a government in Iraq by reluctantly accepting Iranian help in the region. Turkey has only been an active partner in the humanitarian aid mission and contributing to counterterrorism efforts outside the conflict zone. It is unlikely to join the airstrike coalition or to assist the government in Baghdad. But Turkey’s opinion about the utility of assisting certain groups does not align with the thinking of its NATO partners, as evidenced by the smuggling activities uncovered by Reuters.

So whose side is Ankara on? For now it stands alone. Technically, Turkey is a NATO treaty ally, but given its reluctance to participate in NATO operations in Iraq, anyone can see that the NATO-Turkey relationship has been fraying slowly over time. NATO offers Turkey a hedge against aggression from Assad, but Turkey remains reluctant to take part in US-led NATO missions. Additionally, Turkey depends on the United States to keep Iraq from imploding. Like the Arabs, Turkey is uncomfortable with expanding Iranian influence in the region. But Turkey is unlikely to openly challenge Iranian power, unlike the Saudis, who have been actively fighting Iranian supported Houthi militants in Yemen. Turkey also has the unique problem of dealing with a quite large Kurdish population with territorial ambitions. Keeping the Kurds in check is a national security priority for Ankara, and the Turkish government would undoubtedly diverge from its allies’ policies to keep Kurdish militants under control if necessary. Turkey also does not want to arm Kurdish forces fighting in Syria or Iraq for fear that those weapons could be used against Turkey in the future.

Like the US, Turkey is unlikely to fight outside of a supportive coalition. But its interests no longer align with those of its NATO allies, and so it finds itself isolated in many areas. Perhaps the upcoming elections will result in a change for Turkish policies, but for now its foreign agenda will remain intact. Turkey will have to come up with solutions for its foreign policy challenges on its own, lest they be resolved in favor of its foes. Maybe letting the Islamic State achieve its short-term goals in Syria wouldn’t be so bad for Turkey, if Ankara could figure out a foolproof and bloodless way to prevent IS from achieving its larger ambitions in the future.

Good luck with that, Erdogan.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

Syria, Iraq and Ukraine have been reduced to shambles. You’ve seen it all over the news: terrorist turned caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his Islamic State watch as their influence and power spreads like wildfire across the Levant, while pro-Russian opposition groups wreck havoc throughout the Ukraine, shaking the establishment of the Iraqi and Ukrainian governments at their cores. Millions of refugees and internally displaced persons across the regions suffer from inadequate resources and fear they may never return home again amidst oppositional invasions and airstrikes in cities like Mosul and Snizhne. Thousands of miles away from the comfort of our living rooms we wonder how these states descended into chaos so rapidly in the past few years and why attempts at reigning in their power prove ineffectual at best.

Yet, the leadership in two of these regions has emerged from the entropy unscathed, and, by some accounts, more powerful than ever despite the chaos unfolding within their borders. Bashar al-Assad began his third presidential term last week despite condemnation of Syria’s elections by the European Union, the United States and UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon as unfair and illegitimate. According to a recent Gallup poll, Vladimir Putin has enjoyed an 29% increase in his national approval rating this past year, no doubt in response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea and destabilizing role in Eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Syrian political groups remain mired in intense intra-group conflict over how to handle their current domestic situation. With the current split system between Bashar’s Damascus and the opposition-led Aleppo government, little hope remains for any semblance of legitimate rule.

In Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been blacklisted and blamed by leaders in the Gulf States and Iraq’s own general public for failing to quash the rebel fighters edging their way towards Baghdad. Mired in gridlock as Parliament members attempt to form a new government, the hope for order and stability in Iraq seems fleeting for the near future.

How do Putin and Assad continue to reign with such unchecked power given the fierce opposition by their own citizens –as seen in the Pussy Riot protests and by free speech advocates being arrested for “violating public order”–and, by and large, the Western world? Without question, Russia’s star has risen astronomically in the global political arena over the past year. Damascus, thanks to the generosity of Putin’s government, has greatly increased its military power with Russian-made jets used to hunt down oppositional militias. Al-Baghdadi and his troops have captured the Al-Omar gas field in central Syria, increasing their economic power and threatening the very core of the Iraqi energy sector. Though by no means exclusively, ‘iron fist’politics, tangible gains in national interest and popularly supported cronyism are the three driving factors in the success of Bashar, al-Baghdadi and Putin.

Dominant leadership has proved crucial to the success of Putin’s Russia. Since 2000, his charismatic authoritarianism has pushed the country to the forefront of the political arena. By setting a precedent of swift, no-holds-barred action against opposition groups during the Second Chechen War, Putin enjoys popular support as a leader who demonstrates potency and has a clear vision for the future. Bashar too continues to hold absolute rule despite the scattered battlefields across the country, authoritatively quashing rebel groups with brutal barrel bombs and leaving millions displaced or in flight from their homeland. Al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State has also risen as an effectual political and military model that wins citizens’support thanks to welfare services and public works projects, despite grave ideological differences within the group’s vision of a caliphate and fundamentalist fueled sharia law.

All three leaders also boast a clear grand strategy for what they perceive as the public’s interest. Putin’s vision of Russian exceptionalism, reiterated in his speeches to the people, now inspire a new wave of popular support throughout the country, and his actions in Crimea and the rest of Ukraine reflect a prototypically powerful Russia rising from the ashes of the USSR’s breakup in 1992. Pro-Russian rebel forces now control the majority of Eastern Ukraine –including the area where Malaysian Airlines MH-17 was allegedly shot down by opposition forces with Russian-supplied surface-to-air missiles–further illustrating their influence. In Bashar’s inaugural speech last week, he called for a greater focus on caring for the people of Syria, decrying attempts from the West to uproot existing order in the country and promising to protect the Syrian people against further bloodshed. While his declarations of victory of terrorism don’t ring true for Syrians in Aleppo still recovering from last week’s airstrike, his military and political capabilities will undoubtedly keep Syria safe from international threats and slowly but surely defeat the Free Syrian Army from within its borders. Al-Baghdadi’s comprehensive public works campaigns and acquisitions of oil and gas fields in both Syria and Iraq have won the support of citizens and business leaders alike who hope to cash in on the loot.

Yet, the widespread, intricate cronyism that ties the three together is the most damning evidence of all. Reports recently surfaced that the Islamic State may be selling Syria oil and gas through secret back channels, even though the Syrian government vowed to “eliminate” the extremist Sunni terrorist organization, which it considers a threat to Bashar’s presidency. Russia too has joined in on the action, providing the Syrian regime with weapons and jets to combat their civil war, seeing value in defending a vital economic and political ally in the Middle East.

Sustained growth by these three powers gravely threatens American political and economic interests; yet, the US has proposed ineffectual sanctions that, while crippling to Syria and Russia’s economy, have done little to nothing to ease tensions and render solutions. Putin hasn’t batted an eyelid: the creation of the $100 billion BRICS Development Bank poses a serious threat to both the US dollar and the influence of Western-based lending institutions like the World Bank and IMF. While a three-front war in the regions would be strategically challenging and politically impossible, more direct action must be taken in Iraq, Syria and Russia. While America’s presence in Iraq is growing, its purely advisory role lacks the necessary punch to rid Iraq of ISIS.

While war hawks and some leaders in the US want to sustain the country’s role as the international police force for conflict and corruption around the world, it is clear that a majority of Americans want to focus on domestic economic and political rehabilitation. Ultimately, the country may no longer be able to foot the bill, either economically or politically.

The views expressed by these authors do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

Over the past few years, the largest obstacle to Iran’s power projection and influence in the greater Middle East has been sanctions levied against Tehran by the United States, Europe and the United Nations. Tehran’s nuclear program is the main cause, but festering wounds caused by Iran’s own vehement anti-Americanism and the 1979 Hostage Crisis endure, with Iran’s support of Hezbollah against Israel causing even more strain.

Optimism in the West for rapprochement with Iran surged with the swearing-in of the relatively moderate President Rouhani. After President Rouhani visited New York City, held a phone conversation with President Obama – the highest level talk between the two countries since 1979 – and then offered to sit down and talk about proliferation and the possible ending of sanctions, the West was ready to listen. With a possible rapprochement on the line, it is a prime time for the US to analyze Iran’s geostrategic objectives in the context of American involvement in the Middle East and the ongoing Iraqi crisis.

Iran’s Current Geopolitical Position

Iran geopolitical position is unenviable. A look at it’s neighborhood reveals that, contrary to hardliners’ fears of a post-sanctions Iran ruling the Middle East, Iran finds itself in a tar pit of dangers.

Iran is only one of four majority Shi’a countries, the others being Iraq, Bahrain and Azerbaijan. Despite Iran viewing itself as the leader of the Shi’a world, relations with each of these Shi’a countries are strained. Iraq is deteriorating by the day. Bahrain mistrusts Iran due to Iranian sentiments expressing the desire to annex Bahrain, igniting Bahraini Arab nationalism. Azerbaijan and Iran, despite sharing strong cultural, religious and historical ties, mistrust each other. Iran remains suspicious of possible Azeri irredentist ambitions (four of Iran’s provinces are considered part of “Greater Azerbaijan”), while Azerbaijan also remains suspicious of Iran’s maneuvers, particularly after Iran’s support for Armenia during the Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Due to its size, its ability to project significant power and its historical and cultural influences, Iran is a contender for establishing regional hegemony in the Middle East. It faces two rivals, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, one a parallel Sunni theocracy and the other a secular republic. Despite Turkey’s recent political instability, their friendship with the Iraqi Kurds and existing image as an effective partner for the West in Middle Eastern affairs renders it a significant regional power. Saudi Arabia is determined to oppose Iran at every turn. Leveraging its status as a strategic American ally, Saudi Arabia has liberally asserted itself in the greater Middle East, endeavoring to isolate Iran and funding Sunni movements against Iran and its allies. Wikileaks documents reveal that despite warming relations, Saudi Arabia encouraged the Americans to attack Iran in the heyday of the Israel-Iran standoff.

Thus, Iran is relatively isolated in the world. While Iran does have powerful friends in China and Russia, the former does not wish to be heavily involved in the politics of the region and Iran cannot consistently rely on their help. Syria is the only reliable regional ally, but unfortunately for Iran, Assad has been severely weakened in his fight with the rebels, leaving Iran, in terms of immediate surroundings, with few options.

Therefore, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities for its own power projection is understandable. Furthermore, Iran’s overall regional strategy relies on soft power. Facing a Sunni Saudi Arabia backed by the Americans, Iran has opted for pan-Islamic leadership by taking foremost action against its arch-nemesis Israel, thereby not only attempting to rally Muslims to the Palestinian cause, but also attempting to encourage the people of the Middle East to expunge American influence from the region.

ISIS Crisis

The origins of the ISIS Crisis are studded with irony. Before ISIS established a Caliphate, the underground group was funded largely by wealthy patrons in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE, secretly wishing to ignite an anti-Shi’a jihad. Although Saudi Arabia has since reduced donations to ISIS, it is clear that America’s traditional allies in the region indirectly contributed to the disintegration of the Iraqi state. This is not to say that Maliki’s own sectarian policies, and by extension Iran’s own meddling in Iraq, share no part of the blame. It is only to say that in this current climate, the US finds itself in an awkward, and oddly opportune, position of needing new allies to help stabilize Iraq.

As painful as it may be for us to work with a member of the “Axis of Evil,” and as upsetting as it is to continue supporting al-Maliki as he violates principles of democratic governance, regional stability in the Middle East is the highest priority for America. The most preferable short-term stable state of affairs would be one in which al-Maliki reigns as a reliable client in Baghdad, a state we are increasingly unable to maintain.

Iran, having carved a sphere of influence through Iraq to Syria, cannot allow a fundamentally anti-Iranian Sunni insurrection to disrupt Iranian designs, much less allow a disruption so close to Iran’s own homeland. Iran also recognizes that in the current situation with a weakened Assad, an increasingly assertive Turkish-backed Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region and a reluctant America, it cannot combat ISIS alone. The Syrian Civil War drained Iran of much political capital as it sought to keep Assad in power. Indeed, it seems increasingly likely that Iran will have to choose which ally to save: Syria or Iraq. Needing stable borders and to prevent spillover conflicts, Iran will likely choose Iraq and seek American partnership.

Rushing into the limelight during ongoing talks between the West and Iran concerning proliferation and the ending of sanctions, ISIS seems to provide an incentive for the Americans and Iranians to recognize their common interests and pursue greater cooperation. For now, the Eagle’s priorities align with the Lion’s.

Future Trajectory

While neat parallels do not exist between 2014 Iran and 1972 China, Nixon and Kissinger’s bold move reminds us today that daring statecraft will always be necessary. America would gain much needed Iranian support in stabilizing Iraq. Additionally, less pressure on Tehran would allow Iran to further entertain the possibility of an Iraq without al-Maliki. While al-Maliki is a reliable ally of Tehran, even the Iranians realize that al-Maliki’s divisive politics are not a suitable long-term strategy for the Iranian sphere of influence, a realization made all the more apparent by ISIS’ insurrection.

Another possible boon is that Iran can play a role in ensuring the survival of the Afghan state. Iranian covert support of the Taliban may run counter to American interests, but in the short term Iran also wishes for a stable Afghanistan, which cannot be guaranteed should American support and manpower in the region dwindle.

Security and politics aside, Iran also brings a largely untapped market to the table. Sanctions have prevented Western businesses from pursuing opportunities in Iran. With Iranian overdependence on oil exports, cueing the need for diversification and a rich resource base that includes large reserves of hydrocarbon, investment and partnership opportunities for American businesses abound. For instance, California-based World Eco Energy has reportedly signed a conditional $1.175b deal in Iran to turn waste into energy.

Iran, for its part, will perhaps have even more to gain from a partnership with the Americans. Booming economies, solutions to macroeconomic woes brought about by sanctions and liberalized oil exports aside, Iran would simply have more space to maneuver. No longer drawing the ire of a powerful ally of Saudi Arabia, Iran can set out to expand its economic and political influence.

For instance, recognizing the apprehension of surrounding Gulf States to the possibility of a resurgent Iran, Tehran sent a delegation to Kuwait, the UAE and Oman. This move is beneficial on many fronts since it allows Tehran to look past sectarian differences and work towards solutions for the ISIS crisis, perhaps even paving the way for future talks on Gulf cooperation and energy policy.

On the flip side of the coin, increased room for Iranian maneuvers might also mean greater Hezbollah activities against Israel. However, this can be checked by greater American security commitments to Israel, agreements with the Iranians themselves, or by the simple fact that solving the ISIS crisis will require even more political capital and resources from Iran, already partially depleted from the Syria Civil War.

Of course, any partnership does not make Iran our friend. Iranian support of Hezbollah and Taliban cannot go unheeded. The values and interests of Iran still clash with the American’s. Iranian ambitions must still be curbed through continued support and reassurances of key allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. It is a fine game the Americans must play: to engage in offshore balancing without too often lending a hand to any one party. Nevertheless, cooperation with Iran can expedite Middle Eastern stability, giving the United States much needed breathing room to address domestic problems and reevaluate its foreign policy strategy in the Middle East.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

I heard a joke once. The joke was that Winston Churchill, who in 1921 was serving as Secretary of State of the British colonies, had created the British protectorate Transjordan (now the country of Jordan) by drawing an arbitrary line through Saudi Arabia. The odd zig-zag shape the border creates is supposedly the result of Churchill’s hiccups following a particularly drunken lunch.

Some joke, when thousands of people are displaced because of a hiccup. But whether or not Churchill told this story in jest, and whether or not he really had one too many the day he created the border between what is now Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the fact remains that it is no joke, and no secret, that the borders of the Middle East were artificially created by the French and British almost one hundred years ago. Today, the world watches in disbelief as many of the Middle Eastern countries repeatedly collapse into instability.

It’s important to study the history of this instability before proposing solutions. In 1915, the Ottoman Empire had been watching its power decline in the face of European global domination for almost two hundred years. Its final, fatal mistake was joining World War I on the side of Germany. As the war continued, it became clear that the Ottoman Empire was not going to survive. Britain and France, the two imperial powerhouses at the time, signed a secret pact called the Sykes-Picot Agreement, splitting the Ottoman territories of the Middle East based on their strategic interests. The agreement drew the borders of (roughly) modern day Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine and Egypt. It placed each state under the control of either French or British mandate, allowing the two powers to rule those territories “until each mandated state was judged fit to govern itself.”

The system that the Sykes-Picot Agreement forged in the Middle East was not to last long. All of the states created under the agreement eventually did gain independence from their mandate powers. And all of these states have experienced at least occasional, if not continuous, instability and strife in the last one hundred years since the mandate system split them apart.

Above all, instability created by the Arab Spring in 2011 was a wake up call. Not only for the authoritarian regimes that had dominated the governments of the Middle Eastern states since “independence” who were overthrown, but also for the millions of people in the Middle East who had been living under severe repressive conditions for decades. The entire world, too, was shocked by the spread and success of the Arab Spring; few times in history have we observed the stability of an entire region completely fall apart at the same time.

It should have been clear then that if that many people were demanding and fighting for change, something was wrong with the physical nature of the Middle East and its role in global society – the Arab Spring was but a delayed reaction to the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The countries that make up the region had been forced into the Westphalian system – where nation states, not ethnicities or religions, are the dividers of people – by imperialistic powers that cared only for geostrategic and economic dominance. The ethnicities, religions and politics of the people of the region had absolutely nothing to do with the borders that separated them. Could this be why the Middle East has been condemned to conflict? Has democracy never seemed to work in these countries because they cannot be governed by people who never intended to interact with each other?

This question was not voiced during the Arab Spring. The question of borders has only recently been provoked by the near-collapse of the Iraqi state under the Sunni militant group ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), which aims to create its own Islamic state under Sharia (strict Islamic law). At the time of this writing, ISIS has invaded and taken control of southwestern Syria and major northern Iraqi cities, officially declaring a caliphate – an Islamic state – in the region. Within the border of what was only a month ago the state of Iraq, there remains a makeshift Kurdish state in the northeast and the significantly weakened Shia majority government in Baghdad.

Many of the questions posed in the last few weeks by the media and global governments are centered on how to stop ISIS from destroying Iraqi and Syrian “sovereignty” – basically, the governmental “right” to control the land defined by the current, Westphalian borders. The insinuation is that ISIS does not have the right to claim the territory that it has taken over. Based on the history of the region and how it was created, though, it has been debated whether the rest of the world has a right to decide this question.

It is not disputed that ISIS has already been the cause of countless human rights violations. But, so have the Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes that found that the only way to tie together their disparate groups of citizens was to strap them together with oppression and violence. Perhaps what the Middle Eastern states need in order to finally end a century of instability is to be allowed to split by natural borders – by borders drawn based on ethnicities, religions and political groups – not by those borders created by arbitrary, imperial hiccups.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

On June 11, hundreds of fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) swelled into Iraq from its northern border with Syria. In days, the fighters toppled the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Tikrit, cities that United States forces had fought for years to stabilize. The Iraq Security Forces (ISF), trained by the United States, crumbled.

The Iraq war hawks of old were quick to the punch. Pundits like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, who had lost all credibility for constructing the fallacious existence of weapons of mass destruction that ultimately fooled the public and Congress into supporting the war, were now making rounds on the Sunday talk shows preaching the same outdated nonsense: more military intervention, and fast!

The extremely complicated Iraq situation could become a major talking point in the 2016 midterm elections, possibly requiring currently elected officials to act decisively before the elections in support of military or diplomatic intervention. For these reasons, anyone planning to vote in the upcoming election should keep three things in mind that offer overwhelming evidence against candidates or incumbents that support another large-scale military intervention. After 2016, we voters won’t get another chance for two years. “Fool me once, shame on you,” the saying goes. If we are fooled twice, the shame is entirely ours.

First, President Obama is not to blame for the destruction of the house that then-President Bush built. Folks like Senator John McCain think otherwise, blaming the withdrawal of forces under President Obama on the current crisis: “Lindsey Graham and John McCain were right,” said McCain, who sometimes speaks in the third person, on the ISIS crisis. “Our failure to leave forces on Iraq is why Sen. Graham and I predicted this would happen.”

McCain’s statements should be taken with a grain – no, a shaker – of salt. On New Year’s Eve 2011, the last of 40,000 US troops rolled out of Iraq. Though the withdrawal happened under the watch of President Obama, it was then-President Bush who had tied the hands of future administrations to maintain troops in the country past the end of 2011. In November of 2008, the Iraqi parliament and Bush agreed to a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that allowed continued presence of US troops until the end of 2011, after the expiration of the mandate to occupy that was issued by the UN Security Council. More importantly, pursuant to the SOFA any presence past that deadline had to be approved by Iraq, which rejected the Obama administration’s proposal to keep 3,000 troops behind in the country to continue to mentor the ISF.

According to Middle East historian Juan Cole, “Bush had to sign what the [Iraqi] parliament gave him or face the prospect that U.S. troops would have to leave by 31 December, 2008, something that would have been interpreted as a defeat… Bush and his generals clearly expected, however, that over time Washington would be able to wriggle out of the treaty and would find a way to keep a division or so in Iraq past that deadline.”

Discussing fault is politically sexy, but is also a serious distraction from the real elephants in the room: the premise that the 2003 invasion was a good idea in the first place, and the uncertainty of how to prevent Iraq from dissolving into a hotbed of anti-American, anti-West extremism that Obama has acknowledged could pose a major threat to national security. Besides offering plans that can’t be taken seriously or no plans at all, no one seems to know what to do, which brings us to observation number two:

The situation is extremely complex. The consequences of any action are hard to predict, and even the most airtight and straightforward of plans always fail to account for all of the details. There won’t be an easy solution, and it certainly won’t come in the form of “precise and targeted” (or more grandiose, for that matter) military action.. This rather basic worldview is the most compelling case for no military action at all, but it has an entire industry of defense contractors and grand strategist neocons reeling at the possibility that the most sure-footed solution is to the resist the urge to find one.

At this point, one of several carefully selected quotes from Senator McCain or Iraq architects Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld calling for Iraq War 2.0 could be inserted and summarily picked apart.

But what about the opinion of the editorial board at the Wall Street Journal, widely circulated to the American public? Recently, they wrote: “The alternative is to stage an intervention similar to what the French did in Mali in early 2013, using a combination of air power and paratroops to defeat or at least contain ISIS…Mr. Obama’s policy in Iraq has failed, that his claims of retreat without risk from the Middle East were false and naive, and that his premature withdrawal now demands an emergency intervention.” Such an opinion is a perfect embodiment of what is sure to be increasing calls for the United States to come to the rescue of the Middle East once again. They will seem simple, and they should be rejected for that reason. Anyone who thinks a few paratroopers and airstrikes, and “presto, no conflict!” is missing the real point.

Third, the disintegration of Iraq is, according to international terrorism scholar Nafeez Ahmed, a “neocon’s dream.” No one should lose sight of the fact that in a region beset by religious conflict, the primary objective of all actors is, and always has been, how to secure control of oil supplies. Look carefully through the news coverage and the statements of politicians, though, and you’ll be hard pressed to find any discussion of it. Calls in the United States to plant the “seeds of democracy” and stave off terrorism are really Trojan horses for doing the dirty work of securing dirty energy. The sooner policymakers recognize that, and act accordingly to move this country toward independence of foreign oil, the sooner a solution to the Middle East won’t be tainted black by petroleum.

The Obama administration’s decision to decline sending any troops to Iraq that would fulfill a combat role is a correct one. Left on the table, however, is “targeted and precise military action,” most likely in the form of air strikes. Vaporizing ISIS with drones isn’t going to prevent their continued recruitment of radicals, nor is it going to fix the mess that is the Iraqi government.

Here is what we shouldn’t do: commit more military forces to a conflict that we have never understood fully from the beginning. Politicians and voters on the home front should recognize that the issues that are within our grasp are more sustainable energy and increased domestic security from a very threatening and unstable region of the world. That region, unfortunately, will be unstable whether we like it or not.

Need another plot twist to convince you? The regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad (who violated a United States red line when it used chemical weapons to exterminate revolting Syrians) is also fighting the Islamic State along side the United States. This defacto alliance is so strong that officials inside the Obama administration have called for easing pressure for an Assad regime change.

The long and the short: what the United States spent over ten years doing in Iraq was undone in one month. Any American voter should be extremely suspicious of another snake oil, fix all solution based upon the same flawed tactics that have cost countless lives and over a trillion dollars. Protecting our embassy and the American citizens who work there is a priority. Trying to nation build with our military is not. Continued discussions with allies, watching and waiting, and remaining cognizant that other unsavory powers like Syria, Russia, and Iran hate ISIS as much as we do is a far more prudent solution. Using our military to prevent the region from descending into the chaos the neocons are trying so desperately to convince us is just around the corner (and have been for 10 years) won’t work. Voters won’t subscribe to the vison that a crisis in an unstable Middle East is just around the corner anymore, because the region has been unstable for centuries.

“Some men just want to watch the world burn,” Alfred tells Batman in “The Dark Knight Rises.” The reader will criticize this article for failing to propose a “grand strategy” to stop the Islamic State, and discrediting those who do. Here’s the plan: watch them. They can’t be stopped, but they can be stopped from threatening American lives if we refuse to put those lives in harm’s way: adding more fuel to the fire will show an unfortunate amnesia of history, and that history will repeat itself.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

Recent weeks and months have seen the great Iraqi cities of Tikrit, Fallujah and Mosul fall to the former al-Qaeda regional group known variously as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Iraqi State of Iraq and al-Sham, or most commonly in Western parlance, ‘ISIS.’ The Fall of Fallujah a few months ago sent the initial shockwaves, and ISIS’s new conquest merely affirms their effectiveness as an organization.

Moreover, ISIS is not operating the way most jihadist groups have functioned in the past decade. Whereas most groups have focused on attacks and recruitment, as the al-Qaeda Core and its various satellites have done, ISIS has gone a step further towards fulfilling al-Qaeda’s original grand strategy: true to the “Islamic State” component of its name, ISIS has gone about holding territory, maintaining order, establishing institutions and providing services and its own form of justice to those under its domain. In this way it more closely resembles the pre-2001 Taliban, who for all their failings were at least able to maintain a reasonably orderly state in Afghanistan—a feat no one has since managed to replicate. Though some commentators doubt the longevity of ISIS’s state, it cannot be denied that ISIS is a successful contender on the international stage with a different and more sustainable sort of power the al-Qaeda core has never been able to achieve.

This invariably presents problems for US policymakers. A major part of the narrative promulgated during the War on Terror has been the barbarism and cowardly terror tactics used by Islamist groups. How, then, do we explain that our Islamist foes are now maintaining order in Iraq better than we ever have, to the point of actually setting up a Consumer Protection Agency where the kings of Babylon once rode?

Moreover, American (and, in general, Western) policy has relied on the Westphalian international system for determining what is and is not a state, and thus which organizations and entities we can legally have relations with. For the most part this has been a relatively clear-cut distinction; after all, Western influence has been so profound in the last few centuries that today, virtually every internationally recognized state in the world traces its intellectual origins to Western thinkers.

But what about those cases along the periphery of the traditional civilized world that do not exist as a state as we know the term, but nonetheless emerge as the primary political grouping by which individuals identify?

ISIS is not Iraq’s only quasi-state. In the north of Iraq, as well as in parts of Turkey and Syria, the Kurds have for many years existed on their own, providing their own security and basic services, yet remaining unrecognized by the international community. They have been essentially autonomous since before the Saddam regime, and since the Fall of Baghdad in 2003, they have governed the most stable area of Iraq—stable largely due to their superior, organic political culture.

In Yemen, the government in Sana’a holds only official sovereignty over the Arabian Peninsula’s tip. Houthi tribesmen, Shi’as with supreme antipathy to the central government, rule the hills and mountains. It is against these insurgents – as well as the al-Qaeda operatives in their midst – whom the infamous US drone strikes have targeted over the last few years.

Somalia has existed under a sort of warlord-like system for many years, and while it is decaying and collapsing at the moment, it has nonetheless managed to produce some of the main non-state power brokers in the Horn of Africa.

Meanwhile, one need only look to Nigeria, Congo, Libya, Afghanistan and the Caucasus to see traditionally structured and ethnically based political entities waging insurgencies against other ethnic groups and the local governments. It is not hard to imagine that, were these groups slightly more successful, they would easily be compelled to institute such civilizing policies as those ISIS is putting in place in Iraq. Moreover, though these semi-states would assuredly be diplomatically and technically less advanced than most other states, they would invariably enjoy a much higher degree of legitimacy than most developing world states that are effectively Western institutions trying to fit non-Western societies. The recent history of insurgency suggests that this is a dangerous situation: groups with dramatically inferior technology and tactics can outlast the onslaughts of Western militaries due largely to the passionate support of local peoples.

It is time the United States cease the internationalist formality that has hitherto constrained it from operating effectively in the Virgilian quest to spread political order to the ends of the Earth. What matters is not a commitment to Western styles of democracy, nor an agreed-upon definition of the rights of the individual, but the basic good of political order, in whatever form and justified by whatever ideology or culture. ‘Power Pluralism’ can be the America’s most effective tool in halting the advance of anarchy and promoting a world where powers can speak to each other in a common forum—something that the United Nations has succeeded at only partially, and manifestly failed at in regions of the world not sharing the West’s advanced degree of social and political development.

Two political thinkers, Francis Fukuyama and James Kurth – both students of the famous and infamous 20^th century political scientist Samuel P. Huntingon – offer slightly differing but fundamentally similar visions of political development. In his magisterial treatise ‘The Origins of Political Order,’ Fukuyama cites a “centralized source of authority,” “the rule of law” and “accountable government”[1] as the three pillars of political order, which reinforce and complement each other, but tend to exist in differing degrees in different societies. Fukuyama places a premium on democratic accountability, accountability to the people through representative institutions. Thus, echoing his ‘End of History’ thesis, Fukuyama argues that Western democratic forms of political order are fundamentally more representative and stabilizing than traditional religious and cultural forms. Nonetheless, a primacy is still placed on Weber’s monopoly of legitimate force – the state – as the source of order.

James Kurth, in his article “Coming to Order,” details a similar hierarchy of political goods, using the Declaration of Independence as his model. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – in the respective forms of Order, Law, and Civilization – are the chief fruits of the state, and generally they correspond to Fukuyama’s state apparatus, rule of law, and democratic accountability. Kurth, however, remains loyal to his mentor’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ thesis, and emphasizes a relative equality of forms of accountability and social cohesion. The religious bonds linking Sunni societies and separating them from Shia societies are, in Kurth’s account, as strong as or stronger than the interested democratic ties linking Westphalian, Weberian, Western states.

Nuances aside, Fukuyama and Kurth are probably both right in their own respective ways. The nearly universal adaptability of Western democratic legitimacy to nation-states with cultures as diverse as those of Argentina, Japan and Israel suggests that most societies, upon reaching a certain level of social, economic and political development, wind up utilizing some form of democratic accountability to manage the interests of their populace. But the enduring popularity of traditional forms of legitimacy, particularly in the Middle East and Africa but even traceable in the Confucian-based cultures of East Asia and the patriarchal authoritarianism of the Slavic states, means that different versions of accountability cannot be discounted. And as no nation-state, however powerful, can force other nations through the equivalent of centuries of political development and expect to succeed, it is important to heed both Fukuyama and Kurth, and preserve democratically accountable governments where possible, but deal with governments accountable by other cultural means as they exist while encouraging their further development and integration into the global maritime system. This is the essence of Power Pluralism.

But Power Pluralism goes a step further. It is one thing to support existing states; it is quite another to watch the rise and fall of other states, and pledge support to the actors most capable of protecting local order-one of whom, it seems, is ISIS. This is clearly a morally dubious task, as oftentimes those actors most capable of protecting order or holding legitimacy on the domestic scene are the very actors most opposed to our nation’s values and interests on the international stage. At times it may be wisest to use the old Chinese strategy of keeping the ethnically homogenous “barbarians” divided against each other so “they” cannot unite against “us.” But, in the modern world, where political development is imperative to Mankind’s future, and non-state groups flourish where disorder reigns, such a strategy would be “barbaric” in itself, regardless of its usefulness. More promising would be the lesson which that European powers learned in the American Civil War, and which America learned in the Russian Civil War and the Vietnamese War.

It is well known that, much to Lincoln’s chagrin, the governments of Britain and France gave covert support to the Confederacy during the War Between the States. This was perfectly natural, as it was in their interest to see a divided North American continent, and had they succeeded their power position in the North Atlantic might have been maintained. Unfortunately for them, however, the Confederacy was never going to win the war, in the long run. It might have achieved a decisive victory and maintained independence for a few years, but its industrial weakness and geopolitical vulnerability would eventually have placed it back in the arms of the Union. The North was destined to win the great game over the long term, and North America – though it would have had a bloodier heritage – eventually would have been again united under Washington, DC. The fact that Britain and France gave their support to the loser estranged the Franco-American and Anglo-American relationships for decades to come, and may have contributed to the Americans’ dragging their feet in the First World War. A Washington-London-Paris entente, conversely, might have contributed to stronger transatlantic order earlier in the 19^th century.

When the Russian state collapsed in 1917 and the Bolsheviks rose up against Romanov forces, England and the United States saw a dangerous red tide rising with Lenin’s revolutionary movement. To counteract this, they provided military aid to the “White Russian” forces of the Czar, and strove to put down the Bolshevik Revolution. Ultimately they failed, and the Soviet Union began its life in fundamental opposition to the West with a fury greater than Czarist Russia had ever had. Now, this was ideologically an inevitability. But, it would be interesting to consider whether the West and the Soviet Union would have had better relations had the humiliating nail of condemnation not been driven through the coffin of West-USSR relations in the first half of the Twentieth 20^th century. It seems that EH Carr, in advising the British to ally with the rising Bolshevik forces because their victory was inevitable, was morally wrong, but politically prescient.

And in the Vietnamese War, the United States propped up an illegitimate and inefficient regime in Saigon against a homegrown nationalist guerilla force that enjoyed the full support of a majority of the Vietnamese population. Washington might have spared itself tens of thousands of lives and wave after wave of devastating cultural revolutions at home had it worked, earlier on, to reach an understanding with the North Vietnamese.

Of course, allies can and often do turn on each other, with ugly results- witness the aftermath of the Second World War, or the US-backed Mujahedeens’ transformation into the Taliban during the 1990s. But conventional wars are far easier to fight than counterinsurgencies, and in the 21^st century the forces capable of providing order have all been insurgents. It may well be better to win a counterinsurgency by propping up an unsavory regime that we’ll have conventional relations with later, than to allow an insurgency to rule and accomplish nothing with diplomacy.

Where do we go from here? It would probably be prudent to reassess what, exactly, American interests are. But, if an orderly world where the forces of chaos are held at bay and states cooperate and compete in a civilized and organized fashion is the world we want, then it would be logical to start working with whoever, in every region, is most capable of providing order. These relationships do not have to be amicable—this is the kind of relationship we have with authoritarian states, taken even to the next level. But these kinds of dealing are infinitely preferable to isolating the guardians of order, which can only result in such entities’ ideological radicalization and political stagnation.

In this context, the Obama Administration’s opening up to Iran is a step in the right direction. Here we have the United States working with a vehemently anti-American, ideological and human-rights-oppressing regime on the issue of nuclear nonproliferation. But it’s a regime that can keep order over a huge area, while providing one of the highest standards of living in the Muslim world. It’s not pretty, it’s morally troubling and it’s less exciting than strategic competition and war. But, it opens the table of negotiation between the power brokers in one polity, and the power brokers in another. That’s the way things get done. Conversely, the continued recognition of Nouri al-Maliki’s weak and corrupt government in Iraq is detrimental to American interests in Mesopotamia and the cause of order in general. Were the United States to begin working, formally or informally, with ISIS and the Kurds, there is a much greater prospect of regional stability, rather than the current state of chaos enabled by our ignoring the Kurds and condemning (but not really fighting) the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.

Recognizing ISIS for pragmatism’s sake would bring more than just moral queasiness. The group has effectively replaced the al-Qaeda core as the leader of the global jihadist movement. We must be wary that they may maintain plans to strike at Israel, Europe, American military bases, or even the American homeland, all the while dealing with our allies and us duplicitously. A Taliban in Mesopotamia would be an irony and a tragedy.

But, it is a risk worth taking, if for no other reason than the fact that the United States is effectively powerless to do anything about ISIS’s regional standing. In fact, a 2007 article by Jakub Grygiel suggests that a group like ISIS possessing a state may weaken the movement and make them more amenable to American demands. Historically, when “barbarians” have settled down and started the hard work of governing and diplomacy, they have proved inept and become dependent on the international systems led by their former targets. Perhaps the world’s first caliphate since the fall of the Ottoman Empire will, embarrassingly, find itself begging for an accommodation with the West it hates.

Clearly, prudence is the most important thing to keep in mind here. We shouldn’t go around treating every rebel movement the way we treat Great Britain, nor should we sacrifice our relationships with key allies simply due to temporary convenience. But we should weigh what, in the end, is the best interest of the American polity, and the best interest of the peoples of any particular region whom we so profess to care for. I sense that, if ISIS succeeds in keeping order, then it will provide a compelling argument for a fundamental readjustment of American views of sovereignty and the state. Perhaps Power Pluralism will begin to look attractive to those in power in the coming years, as the world gets crazier and we realize how ineffective and weak we Americans are without regional partners. This is the beginning of what George Kennan, “the father of containment,” would call wisdom.

[1] Fukuyama, Francis: “The Origins of Political Order,” pg. 13-14

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.