Khorasan and the Kinds of Things I Turn Over

I'm surprised enough about finding myself on the "do something" side of a foreign policy argument that backing up why I feel that way seems awkward. It seems to me that there isn't exactly a threshold for when something has to be done--I hate analogies in foreign and military affairs. I think every scenario is different, and I don't think "Don't do stupid things" has to mean "Don't do things." If the Obama Administration is committed to pushing back ISIL in Northern Iraq, then the fight is against ISIL as an organization, not just as a specific geographic menace. If they are supplied, financed, armed, or able to regroup from some area just over the border, I don't actually see an advantage to pretending anything going on the other side of that border is "hands-off".  Same guys--why do we care more about the border than they do?  If we're debating whether ISIL should be confronted at all, then this should have been dropped already; Yazidis, Kurds, Chaldean Christians or who ever else is next on their eliminationist shitlist--the US is not doing stupid things for anybody.

I think there's a point to addressing ISIL in Syria for another reason though, and that is the three way civil war. Supporting the Assad regime is unthinkable-and I don't think that's what confronting ISIL is for. It's easy to read the administration's line that Assad would be dealt with if he went after US planes in his territory as another "red lines" thing, but I wouldn't. It seems to me that it just makes sense to reduce the influence of ISIL to make sure they aren't the ones benefited when and if Assad is toppled. There's scads of rebel groups and no easy way to trust which of them are and aren't basically comprised of extremists (and yes, I appreciate that the idea of a "moderate rebel" has an inherent absurdity) but I've come to the conclusion that ISIL is aspirationally at least, looking to be not just "some bad guys" but a force in the region--a movement. They may have broken from al-Qaeda, but that does not mean they are not in synch with that mindset of religious zealotry and self-expression through extreme violence.

Which brings us to the Khorasan group. There have been some mentions over the past few weeks in the news regarding this group, although, since the preoccupation was largely with ISIL, they were kind of under the radar. I don't know to what extent the potential for an active terrorist plot was considered real by US intelligence--but my guess is: real enough to be treated as actionable, and not fully cooked up. I know these days that constitutes something of a leap of faith, but it's not that I trust Obama and them not to lie--it's not to get caught in one that big. Given that the make-up of the group is al-Qaeda veterans, some from AQAP, the idea of exploding clothes on airplanes seems to have been a kind of goal they are very interested in.

I'll admit, my sense that they have to be dealt with is quite possibly deeply biased because the concept of a murderous theocracy spreading across anywhere appalls me. We can all share in the irony the Saudi Arabia isn't exactly a secular haven by any means, and still took part in this strike--but look...if Saudi Arabia is motivated to do something...

Yeah. The coalition, as such, is either a hopeful sign or problematic depending on how you look at it. I myself was struck with the idea that they really were mad about ISIL selling oil from those seized fields on the black market. At the same time, why shouldn't these nations address terrorism happening in their region? Should their commitment make more of an impact, not just on confronting ISIL's spread, but in deterring recruitment?

I will admit though, absolute reservations about how long it would have taken for a coalition and plan of action to have arisen with the ME partners if on their own. I'm simply pessimistic about it. When they would have addressed it matters.

There are simply too many things I find sinister about how these groups are now operating. The name Khorasan is an historical name for the region east of then-Persia--but there is a significance in prophecy regarding the "black banners of Khorasan" presaging the Mahdi. I am hardly conversant enough in Islamic culture to make anything big of prophecies or to even sort out whether they are being end-times oriented or merely poetic, but the flaunting of things like the beheadings seem to be begging for a confrontation.

Why give it to them? Because they will escalate until they get it, is my bet. The problem with waiting to find out, unfortunately, would be finding out. It seems to me that (oh--I'll agree this war premised on the Iraq AUMF is thinly legal, at best!) the administration just didn't want to gamble on the "not doing something" option.