“Mission Accomplished,” were the words hanging behind President George W. Bush on the USS Abraham Lincoln when he gave his infamous speech in 2003 announcing that, “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”
What seemed to be the end of conflict in Iraq turned out to be nothing more than a 10-year pause when a new terror group started to gain power in the country.
The new threat to peace in Iraq is known as ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) or ISIL (The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).
ISIS is an extremist terror group that aims to turn Iraq and the Levant (a region consisting of Lebanon, Syria and Palestine) into an Islamic state. The group was formed by Abu Ayyub al-Masri who had ties to Al-Qaeda. al-Masri was killed in 2010 and was replaced by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who leads ISIS today.
The group started gaining attention in June, when they gained control of Mosul, Nineveh, an Iraqi province and Tikrit, another city in Iraq. Since then, ISIS has declared an Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria.
Although the group’s acts in June did earn some national attention, nothing earned more of a response than the Aug. 19 video released by ISIS showing the execution of American journalist James Foley.
The man who executes Foley in the video says that American journalist Steven Sotloff is also being held captive and will be decapitated if U.S. airstrikes continue. ISIS followed through with their promise Sept. 2 when they posted the video. Afterward, ISIS made another threat to British aid worker David Haines.
On Sept. 10, President Obama gave a speech regarding what America’s plans were in handling ISIS. He said, “Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.”
This had no impact on the terror group, who just three days after Obama’s comments, released a video showing the decapitation of Haines.
Everyone can agree that something needs to be done to destroy ISIS and provide payback for the vicious acts they have done over the past several months. The only problem is that not many Americans think President Obama can get the job done.
According to an NBC News poll, “70 percent of Americans say they lack confidence that the U.S. will achieve its goals in fighting the terrorist group ISIS.”
There’s good reason to be skeptical about America’s ability to handle conflict in the Middle East — America has a less than stellar track record in dealing with the problems in the Middle East.
We already know how things went in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan seems to be heading in the same direction with a fear that the country will fall back into extremist control once the U.S. removes all troops in the coming years.
The list goes on and on with examples of American intervention in the Middle East with what seems to be no real results or solutions to the problem. Acting as the world police in the Middle East is like playing a cruel game of whack-a-mole — just when it seems one problem is solved, another one pops up.
It’s important to realize that the U.S. as a whole, not just President Obama, has had trouble dealing with conflict in the Middle East in the past.
These failures should not scare us away from acting on a threat that would affect the safety of Americans and others across the world. The possibility of yet another terrorist attack on American soil may seem premature to worry about, but there is no telling what ISIS is willing to do in order to get their point across.
But one thing is for certain. Whatever President Obama and the U.S. government decides to do regarding this new terror threat, the country, as a whole needs to understand that any form of action is a step in the right direction.
