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LeMieux: Dangerous world, disconnected president

 
Refugees arrive in Greece last month after fleeing Turkey. Europe is estimated to have received 750,000 migrants fleeing unrest in the Mideast.
Refugees arrive in Greece last month after fleeing Turkey. Europe is estimated to have received 750,000 migrants fleeing unrest in the Mideast.
Published Nov. 11, 2015

The Middle East is in peril.

At no time since World War II has the situation been so bleak. Here are the facts. The Syrian civil war is in its fifth bloody year. More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed, according to the United Nations. Half the country's population of 22 million has been displaced from their homes, and an astounding 4 million-plus refugees have left the country. Bordering nations are on the verge of being destabilized due to mass migration. Turkey has taken in nearly 2 million refugees, Lebanon over a 1 million, Jordan more than 600,000. Europe is estimated to have received at least 750,000 migrants, causing, as the Economist has noted, its biggest crisis in a generation.

ISIS now rules an area larger than the United Kingdom and a population of over 8 million people. Its philosophy is markedly different from al-Qaida, whose singular and achieved goal was to spread terror. ISIS is building a radical Islamic country or, even more ambitious, a radical Islamic empire. ISIS occupies land and has a government with both civil and military components. Its level of organization is so complete that it is performing the regular and mundane functions of government, even reportedly issuing fishing licenses.

At the heart of this Middle East conflict is the division between Shiite and Sunni Islam. Iran, the Bashar Assad regime, Hezbollah and Hamas are Shiites. ISIS and al-Qaida are radical Sunnis. ISIS believes the Shiites' modern view of the Koran is apostasy. Their solution is to purify the world by killing or enslaving all heretics and returning everyday life to the seventh century in accordance with sharia law. To complicate matters, the Syrian civil war has become a proxy war among regional and international powers. While all world powers are against ISIS, Iran and Russia are supporting the Assad regime. The United States, Turkey and our European allies favor Assad's removal.

In recent weeks the situation has deteriorated. In its first use of military power outside its own region since World War II, Russia has attacked ISIS forces as well as the moderate Syrian forces we support. ISIS, for its part, is employing chemical weapons on the battlefield and looks more likely to have bombed a Russian airliner last week, killing all 224 aboard. Dozens of knife attacks against Israelis in the last few weeks also remind us of the uneasy relations between Palestinians and Israelis.

It would not be surprising if matters worsen in 2016. The ISIS/Assad conflict could affect Jordan, Israel, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia. Jordan's moderate Arab government could fall under the weight of migration. The Arab-Israeli conflict could degenerate.

Why are we here?

There are a variety of factors that have plunged the region into chaos, not the least of which was our absolute withdrawal from Iraq after our nine-year war in the region. Unable to agree on terms of a status of forces agreement, the standard legal immunities doctrine that allows our troops to stay in a foreign country, all of our troops were withdrawn wholesale, leaving a huge power vacuum. That vacuum allowed ISIS to take root and flourish. Not surprisingly, many of Saddam Hussein's former military officers are now part of the ISIS military force. Had we retained, for example, 10,000 troops in Iraq, our forces could have worked with the Iraqi military to defeat ISIS before it gained power and territory. Since World War II, the United States has kept military forces in the countries it defeated. Witness Germany, Japan and South Korea, all three of which are stable and first-tier U.S. allies.

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President Barack Obama did not just withdraw the United States militarily from the region. He has withdrawn the United States diplomatically from the world. Seven years into his administration, it is clear the president is an isolationist. He has acted upon this world view and reduced America's role in foreign affairs more than any president since Woodrow Wilson. The absence of American diplomacy, power and prestige has created fertile ground for the growth of an enemy far more dangerous than al-Qaida, prolonged a civil war in Syria that is the human rights disaster of our generation, and encouraged an aggressive Russia that has invaded Ukraine and launched military attacks in Syria. Democratic and Republican presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have recognized the essential role of the United States in foreign affairs as a force for good worldwide and a force for security and prosperity at home.

Fortunately for all us, this president has only one more year with the honorary if not earned title — leader of the free world.

George LeMieux served as a Republican U.S. senator, governor's chief of staff and deputy attorney general. He wrote this exclusively for the Tampa Bay Times.