Some thoughts of mine on Obama's options and constraints re: ISIS [View all]

The official policy of the United States government is to not negotiate with terrorists. ISIS is an incredibly malicious and sadistic terrorist group; consequently, negotiations with such a group are an obvious non-starter.

However, sending tons of American troops into Iraq (again) is also a non-starter. Gone are the Cold War days of having the resources and the domestic political will to mobilize many hundreds of thousands of troops (to be sent nearly anywhere in the world, potentially). America simply has neither the resources/power nor the public will to fight in large-scale conflicts anymore, certainly not nearly to the extent it did even 10 years ago (let alone 50...)

On the other hand, a policy of strict non-interventionism in foreign conflicts is also a non-starter, because 1) the United States as a country has many, many interests around the world; 2) American withdrawal from the rest of the world would have all kinds of negative, unintended consequences, and 3) the American public may not (generally speaking) have the stomach for war in 2014, but they still want their leaders in government to "do something" about horrific situations in the rest of the word where huge numbers of people are suffering as a result of war, genocide, terrorism, famine, disease, or any other humanitarian catastrophes.


Which brings us back to the original point about how the US government, as official policy (of course this policy is disregarded at times...) does not negotiate with terrorists. Additional diplomacy in response to terrorist groups is thus, also a non-starter. We aren't going to send hundreds of thousands of troops into every country that harbors terrorists (taken to the broader level, the US and the UK "harbor" terrorists too! ), we aren't going to negotiate with ISIS or similar groups, we certainly aren't going to sit on our hands and do nothing, so....what options does President Obama-or indeed, any potential President of any party (whether it be Hillary Clinton or anyone else)-have? He doesn't have much "wiggle room", so to speak...

Curious to read any comments, responses, insights into this.

Thanks!