Originally Posted by
ynvaser
Basically, yes. It's better than having an openly hostile ISIS controlling most of the Middle East. Disturbing the hornet's nest achieved nothing but civil war and a hostile force emerging.
ISIS is well equipped and has a significant amount of manpower. Unless you'd like to see a new Caliphate emerging, there needs to be an intervention. You forget that the West created this situation, ISIS is hostile towards the west and if we ever let them solidify their position, we'll have daily suicide bombings on our hands. Stuff has nothing to do with being unhappy with your government at the moment, these guys want to build an empire.
Restoring the natural borders is a good idea, but forcibly balkanizing the remnants of Iraq along ethnic lines is also plausible.
Let the Middle East sort out its own problems. Part of the reason a lot of people initially joined ISIS's campaign was because they were Sunnis sick of being discriminated against by the Shia majority in Iraq. Why are they discriminated against? Because of the demographics of their country. What created those demographics? Us, after WW1.
The Middle East is so sick of the West intervening in their development and free-determination. After 9/11, Osama told the West that this happened because we were in their shit. Us continuing to be in their shit only perpetuates the hostility and conditions that created the mess of a Middle East that we have today.
As I said before, the readjusting of the borders could be done by diplomatic efforts or by war. ISIS creating their Caliphate is an example of the war method. ISIS creating their own state is in response to the current unnatural borders. These unnatural borders were only made possible because of Western intervention in the Middle East. Imagine the Middle East as pressure cooker. Over time, the perpetuation of the unnatural borders causes the instability, the pressure, to gradually build up. Now the pressure has passed the limit, the pressure cooker explodes, and ISIS and their Caliphate pop out.
Long term, this a good thing. It's the Middle East landing from decolonialisation. Admittedly with ISIS, it's quite a hard landing. But it has to happen. The West shouldn't continue to try to stop these decolonialisation efforts. We shouldn't stuff everything back into a new pressure cooker and just wait for it to explode again. The path forward is non-intervention, the path backwards is to continue to do what we've been doing.