Progress will be lost with another war

Try as he might, President Obama has been unable to untangle the United States from the mess in the Middle East.

Now, with a new terrorist group growing ever-fiercer and more dangerous, the president told the nation Wednesday night that Americans must act, with their allies, to stop the fundamentalists who are bent on destroying the West.

Whether known as Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL, as the president calls them, these terrorists are fighting to force their vision of the world on those around them.

It is cold comfort that we are limiting our “war” to airstrikes. The campaign Obama somberly described to the nation is open-ended and lacks clearly defined goals.

In fighting terrorists, of course, it is difficult to say when the enemy is defeated. Like so many cockroaches who hide in the dark, one remaining in the corner can emerge to regain strength long after the battle seems won.

Perhaps our clearest goal must be to beat ISIL down enough that the people of the Middle East can sort out their futures themselves.

Because the president is correct in saying that extremists pose a threat — if not to the United States proper, to our interest and the world’s in having a Middle East that has emerged from turmoil. The damage being caused in the Middle East — to minority groups, to Christians, to women — must be stopped.

Obama made an excellent point that these terrorists are neither a state nor a true representation of the religion they profess to love.

As we remember Sept. 11, 2001, it is difficult not to wonder what the world would look like if the United States had not been hell-bent on going to war in Iraq.

Had we restricted our overseas war to sending special forces in Afghanistan, with the clear and defined mission of tracking down Osama Bin Laden, rather than an all-out war there and then a second in Iraq, our country would be stronger today.

Obama, rightly, has focused his presidency on getting out of the Middle East to focus on nation rebuilding at home. This latest action threatens to reverse that progress.

Once more, the United States faces a potential war of choice.

This time, it is the Nobel Peace Prize-winning President Obama who is sending out the airplanes.

Congress — too worried about the midterm elections — seems to be willing to criticize on the sidelines but not step in as required by the Constitution.

We would like to see people opposed to the perpetual war machine force a debate and set limits for our involvement.

Airstrikes in retaliation for cruelty and terror on the ground are one thing; setting the United States on the course for continual war in a region whose instability is constant is another.

— The Santa Fe New Mexican