Thomas Friedman asks if US should arm ISIS to fix problems created by policies he supported

When it comes to what the US should do in the Middle East, it's a matter of Friedman vs. Friedman
Luke Brinker

“Should we be arming ISIS?”

That’s the question New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman poses today, writing that while he loathes the terrorist group, also known as the Islamic State, it’s not as if the Shiite militias fighting ISIS in Iraq would govern much better:

O.K., so we learn to live with Iran on the edge of a bomb, but shouldn’t we at least bomb the Islamic State to smithereens and help destroy this head-chopping menace? Now I despise ISIS as much as anyone, but let me just toss out a different question: Should we be arming ISIS? Or let me ask that differently: Why are we, for the third time since 9/11, fighting a war on behalf of Iran?

In 2002, we destroyed Iran’s main Sunni foe in Afghanistan (the Taliban regime). In 2003, we destroyed Iran’s main Sunni foe in the Arab world (Saddam Hussein). But because we failed to erect a self-sustaining pluralistic order, which could have been a durable counterbalance to Iran, we created a vacuum in both Iraq and the wider Sunni Arab world. That is why Tehran’s proxies now indirectly dominate four Arab capitals: Beirut, Damascus, Sana and Baghdad.

ISIS, with all its awfulness, emerged as the homegrown Sunni Arab response to this crushing defeat of Sunni Arabism — mixing old pro-Saddam Baathists with medieval Sunni religious fanatics with a collection of ideologues, misfits and adventure-seekers from around the Sunni Muslim world. Obviously, I abhor ISIS and don’t want to see it spread or take over Iraq. I simply raise this question rhetorically because no one else is: Why is it in our interest to destroy the last Sunni bulwark to a total Iranian takeover of Iraq? Because the Shiite militias now leading the fight against ISIS will rule better? Really?

Tough questions. But the Middle East, Friedman notes, is full of them: “Because past is prologue, and the past has carved so much scar tissue into that landscape that it’s hard to see anything healthy or beautiful growing out of it anytime soon.” Might as well consider a few rhetorical questions, if only to think about how to extricate ourselves from our problems in the region — problems, of course, caused in large part by policies Friedman promoted.

Continue reading at http://www.salon.com/2015/03/18/thomas_friedman_asks_if_us_should_arm_isis_to_fix_problems_created_by_policies_he_supported/

I am afraid that he is not the only thinking like this in the Military industrial congressional complex. Maybe this plan has already been implemented because face it, ISIS is actually helping with our ultimate goal of ridding Syria of Assad.

Read and weep