There seems to be little effort by president Obama and his administration or by the media to explain to the American people what it would mean to have an Islamic caliphate stretching across Syria and Iraq under the control of ISIS. Let's just look at a few of the consequences of such a state:
1. The one consequence that is inevitable is that the new state will provide a place for the recruitment and training of Islamic terrorists from around the world. Think of the training camps that al Qaeda had in Afghanistan prior to 9-11 but on a much larger scale. The terrorists will have a base of operation from which they can plan and carry out attacks on all of their enemies, including, of course, the USA.
2. A second inevitable consequence is that war will expand across much of the Middle East. Syria is already locked in a war between the forces loyal to Assad and the Sunni rebels who are now almost totally controlled by ISIS. So far close to 200,000 people have died in that fighting. The creation of a caliphate will mean the expanding role across what has been Iraq of Shiite forces from the Iraqi militias as well as the armed forces of Iran. Since the ISIS forces will now have all sorts of equipment that they captured from the Iraqi army, the battles between Iranian forces and the ISIS troops should be extremely bloody. The dead in Iraq could easily surpass the numbers in Syria. Almost certainly, the ISIS forces will try to take Jordan in the near future. The army of Jordan should be able to stand and fight; but the Jordanians will not likely be able to easily defeat ISIS. If it looks like King Abdullah might be overthrown in Jordan, we could also see the involvement of the Israeli army in fighting in Jordan. Such a move would cause more chaos in the region. We could even see ISIS move into Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
3. If it was not already clear from the previous point, the expanded war will threaten the world's oil supplies. Iraq now supplies something like 4% of the world's daily oil needs. Iran's oil output which recently ramped up when president Obama relaxed the sanctions could easily get hit by ISIS as well. If the Saudi fields and the Kuwaiti fields were to be casualties of the war, the world could lose 20% of its oil supplies in a flash.
There are those who say that since America gets most of its oil from other places, we ought not worry about such a reduction in oil supplies. That is silly. A reduction of even 5% in the world's supply of oil could quickly cause the price of oil to soar. Imagine gasoline costing $6 a gallon, then $7 a gallon and then $8 per gallon. President Obama would undoubtedly try to keep the price down by releasing oil from the strategic reserve, but that would last for just a few months before the prices went way back up. Oh, there would be those who castigate the oil companies because the price has gone so high, but the fault would be due to the restricted supply, not the oil companies. Just imagine the damage done to the world economy as oil prices doubled. Every country in the world would get hit with a recession at the same time, and then that would be followed by a depression.
4. The final inevitable result of the caliphate and the corresponding chaos would be intervention by the USA, Europe and China to try to return order to the area and to return sanity to the world price of oil. On the other side of the equation, Russia would work to try to keep the area unsettled because the huge spike in energy prices would give the Kremlin a spigot of cash of enormous size as a result of the large Russian energy exports.
These are just a few of the main results of the caliphate. America needs to understand the consequences of what is transpiring now. At the moment, we need a leader who will recognize the problem and develop a meaningful response. Unfortunately, instead of such a leader, we have Obama who would have trouble making any decision. It took Obama eight months to decide what to do in Afghanistan. We don't have eight months now. We don't have eight weeks now. We may have eight days; then again, we may not. We need a real president not a deer caught in the headlights.
1. The one consequence that is inevitable is that the new state will provide a place for the recruitment and training of Islamic terrorists from around the world. Think of the training camps that al Qaeda had in Afghanistan prior to 9-11 but on a much larger scale. The terrorists will have a base of operation from which they can plan and carry out attacks on all of their enemies, including, of course, the USA.
2. A second inevitable consequence is that war will expand across much of the Middle East. Syria is already locked in a war between the forces loyal to Assad and the Sunni rebels who are now almost totally controlled by ISIS. So far close to 200,000 people have died in that fighting. The creation of a caliphate will mean the expanding role across what has been Iraq of Shiite forces from the Iraqi militias as well as the armed forces of Iran. Since the ISIS forces will now have all sorts of equipment that they captured from the Iraqi army, the battles between Iranian forces and the ISIS troops should be extremely bloody. The dead in Iraq could easily surpass the numbers in Syria. Almost certainly, the ISIS forces will try to take Jordan in the near future. The army of Jordan should be able to stand and fight; but the Jordanians will not likely be able to easily defeat ISIS. If it looks like King Abdullah might be overthrown in Jordan, we could also see the involvement of the Israeli army in fighting in Jordan. Such a move would cause more chaos in the region. We could even see ISIS move into Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
3. If it was not already clear from the previous point, the expanded war will threaten the world's oil supplies. Iraq now supplies something like 4% of the world's daily oil needs. Iran's oil output which recently ramped up when president Obama relaxed the sanctions could easily get hit by ISIS as well. If the Saudi fields and the Kuwaiti fields were to be casualties of the war, the world could lose 20% of its oil supplies in a flash.
There are those who say that since America gets most of its oil from other places, we ought not worry about such a reduction in oil supplies. That is silly. A reduction of even 5% in the world's supply of oil could quickly cause the price of oil to soar. Imagine gasoline costing $6 a gallon, then $7 a gallon and then $8 per gallon. President Obama would undoubtedly try to keep the price down by releasing oil from the strategic reserve, but that would last for just a few months before the prices went way back up. Oh, there would be those who castigate the oil companies because the price has gone so high, but the fault would be due to the restricted supply, not the oil companies. Just imagine the damage done to the world economy as oil prices doubled. Every country in the world would get hit with a recession at the same time, and then that would be followed by a depression.
4. The final inevitable result of the caliphate and the corresponding chaos would be intervention by the USA, Europe and China to try to return order to the area and to return sanity to the world price of oil. On the other side of the equation, Russia would work to try to keep the area unsettled because the huge spike in energy prices would give the Kremlin a spigot of cash of enormous size as a result of the large Russian energy exports.
These are just a few of the main results of the caliphate. America needs to understand the consequences of what is transpiring now. At the moment, we need a leader who will recognize the problem and develop a meaningful response. Unfortunately, instead of such a leader, we have Obama who would have trouble making any decision. It took Obama eight months to decide what to do in Afghanistan. We don't have eight months now. We don't have eight weeks now. We may have eight days; then again, we may not. We need a real president not a deer caught in the headlights.
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