[cmdkeen]

My earlier post posited not caring, let the civil war continue, hand it over to the "nicest" Sunni group we can live with, give it to Assad - none of those outcomes involve a terror exporting aspirant state controlling territory. If we temporarily control a swathe of territory it puts in a position to make a bargain with someone.

I'm not saying it is good, but is it better than a pretty shitty situation. Do the other groups regularly crucify civilians and hurl homosexuals off buildings? If we acknowledge we can't impose a new government can we create a new normal whereby we smack groups which get out of line but otherwise stay out of the way. It's actually fairly similar to the old Roman system on the outskirts, and the same approach the British initially adopted in the early days of Empire. It's what the Americans sort of did in Afghanistan before the invasion of Iraq effectively dragged them into a civil war.