#IS

…and, Ultimately, to Destroy (4): Difference

For the destruction of IS to occur without our aid and participation would be for us not just to have shirked a responsibility, but to have declined to assert our existence, to have absented ourselves from the course of events. The alternative for us to a world in which we helped to destroy IS would be for us an unjust and absurd world.

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Melhem’s Compulsions (the two-sided failure in Syria contd.)

In an article published today in Al-Arabiya, Hisham Melhem devotes his main attention to the idea that the Middle East is becoming “less Arab” in a way that helps to explain a commensurate adaptation of U.S. policy. [T]he U.S. sees

Posted in International Relations Tagged with: , , ,

…and, Ultimately, to Destroy (3): Acceptance

Collectively as individually, we may also like to think that at the limits we will know the truly unacceptable loss of control when we see it, or are compelled to view it, but we may surprise ourselves with our ability to look away from or to grow used to what formerly we found unbearable, just the latest cadaverized child in a Twitpic.

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Islamic Statism and Historical Necessity

Shadi Hamid begins his essay on “The Roots of the Islamic State’s Appeal” by noting first the tendency of political scientists, including himself, to see “religion, ideology, and identity” as “products of a given set of material factors.” In the

Posted in History, notes, On Liberal Democracy in Relation to Islamism, Religion, War Tagged with: , , ,

…and, Ultimately, to Destroy (2): Control

One pseudo-state calls forth another, as the goal of “mere control” constructs its own eventual failure, both logically and, it seems, practically.

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To Degrade and, Ultimately, To Destroy (1)

The President’s summary of his policy on the Islamic State or on “the group known as ISIL” was not elegantly enunciated: “To degrade and ultimately destroy” is a compound infinitive phrase that is pitched to the demotic or colloquial in

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Wanted: Casus Belli (for the US, against the Assad Regime)

Blog version of Storify post:

Posted in War Tagged with: ,

us v is (What’s So Funny… 2)

…you do seem, at least, to be endlessly rationalizing U.S. imperial overreach, as if it were some sort of grand strategy upholding universal “liberal democracy”, where I tend to see incoherence, disintegration and devolution, on the part of grossly incompetent,

Posted in Neo-Imperialism, notes, Political Philosophy, War Tagged with: , , ,

What’s So Funny about Degradation and Ultimate Destruction?

If I find the time, I will finish and publish a more developed piece on America’s stance toward the Islamic State, partly in response to a post on by Adam Elkus and Nick Prime that, in the process of proposing

Posted in Neo-Imperialism, notes, War Tagged with: , , ,

Failure of the US-Syrian Rebel Alliance Is Two-Sided

To make war on Assad in the absence of a democratically validated decision for war and in the absence of an international legal justification for war would further undermine foundational American premises. Achieving both would not be impossible, but the Heaven and Earth-moving effort is not something that the United States of America or its President is presently likely to attempt on behalf of the united friends of Al Qaeda.

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