A Yazidi fighter gestures while securing a road in Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq for displaced people from the Yazidi religious minority fleeing violence from forces loyal to the Islamic State. A U.S. mission to evacuate the Yazidis trapped on the mountain by Sunni militant fighters is far less likely after a U.S. assessment team sent there on Wednesday found the humanitarian situation not as grave as expected.
If you're feeling nostalgic over fantasies that our troops would be greeted as liberators in Iraq in rose-petal strewn parades, then you're in luck! Because the neocons never give up their crazy war fantasies.
Never.
The public’s sense of war-wariness is not due to financial or personal sacrifice. It is due to the correct feeling that our leadership does not want to be involved in war. “If they stop, we stop.” The deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan seemed like Groundhog Day, with the fighting accomplishing no goal. Similarly, America is drifting toward a decade of war-jaw with an Islamic state in the center of the Middle East.
The public will be supportive if — and only if — our political and military leadership display the warrior resolve to destroy the Islamist army. If you go to war, kill the opponent. Crush his body and spirit until he is destroyed or submits to your goals.
Remember when the public grew so sick and tired of the war in Iraq that they threw out Republicans from Congress in 2006, and then handily defeated John McCain in 2008? It was because President George W. Bush and McCain were so mealy mouthed about the wars, refusing to crush bodies and spirits and force people to submit to their goals. If only they had been more bloodthirsty, the public would've been with them. For example, instead of pushing for 10,000 years of war in Iraq, McCain should've promised 100,000!
One of the biggest problems conservatives have is that they confuse "I believe" with "the American people believe." While neocons may get aroused at the thought of killing and crushing and forcing people to "submit," the American people have zero appetite for yet another endless military adventure. That's not opinion, that's data-supported fact.
Ironically, the Islamic State (or ISIL) wouldn't exist if the neocons hadn't gotten their war in Iraq. The only question is whether that's a feature or a bug.