Perpetual COOSO

For the 20 years between 1991 and 2011 — the interval between Operation Desert Storm and the final withdrawal of U.S. forces after a lengthy occupation of Iraq — Washington policymakers, Republican and Democratic, relied on various forms of coercion to align Iraq with American expectations of how a country ought to run.

The effort failed abysmally.

Now here is Barack Obama, elected president in 2008 largely because he promised to end the Iraq war, back for another bite at the apple. A small bite — since Obama’s aversion to large-scale intervention on the ground will largely restrict the U. S. effort to aerial bombardment supplemented with a bit of advice and equipment.

  Reuters: Andrew J. Bacevich

That’s what he says NOW.

Even if Obama cobbles together a plan to destroy the Islamic State, the problems bedeviling the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East more broadly won’t be going away anytime soon.

Destroying what Obama calls the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant won’t create an effective and legitimate Iraqi state. It won’t restore the possibility of a democratic Egypt. It won’t dissuade Saudi Arabia from funding jihadists. It won’t pull Libya back from the brink of anarchy. It won’t end the Syrian civil war. It won’t bring peace and harmony to Somalia and Yemen. It won’t persuade the Taliban to lay down their arms in Afghanistan. It won’t end the perpetual crisis of Pakistan. It certainly won’t resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All the military power in the world won’t solve those problems. Obama knows that. Yet he is allowing himself to be drawn back into the very war that he once correctly denounced as stupid and unnecessary — mostly because he and his advisers don’t know what else to do. Bombing has become his administration’s default option.

Sure. He’s got an unending (albeit expensive) supply of bombs. What’s that saying? When all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.

Rudderless and without a compass, the American ship of state continues to drift, guns blazing.

And THAT, folks, is the “money quote”.

[ T]he only possible congressional hurdle to stepped up military action by Obama is a move afoot to give him explicit authorization to do so. This is mostly coming from members of Congress who would at least like to maintain the fig-leaf of checks and balances.

[...]

Sens. Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, and Jim Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma — two members of the Hyperbole Caucus — along with Rep. Frank Wolf, Republican of Virginia, introduced resolutions to authorize military action in Syria.

  Dan Froomkin

Seriously, it's not even a question if you don't call it a war.