Opinion from the desk of the Editor:

The Islamic State is once again in the headlines…….they have beheaded an American journalist in retaliation for the US airstrikes…….and the narrative goes on…….if only we had……..

How many time have you heard one gutless politician use that statement?  Such as if only we had cut the budget……or if only we had closed the borders……or if only we had used airstrikes in Syria all would be different.  This is the one I want to talk about today.

That “what if” is a constant criticism of the president……and the loveable ones we call Neocons have been using it profusely in their criticism of Obama especially with the rise of ISIS, the violence in Iraq and the civil war in Syria.

Their constant whipping up the insanity with the notion that if Obama had acted quicker and with airstrikes then the situation in Iraq and the rise of ISIS would have been a thing that we would not be facing today…..

I do not think that any reputable international analyst sees that our involvement early on would have changed anything…….

…………the idea that more U.S. support for the FSA would have prevented the emergence of the Islamic State isn’t even remotely plausible. The open battlefield and nature of the struggle ensured that jihadists would find Syria’s war appealing. The Islamic State recovered steam inside of Iraq as part of a broad Sunni insurgency driven by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bloody, ham-fisted crackdowns in Hawija and Fallujah, and more broadly because of the disaffection of key Sunni actors over Maliki’s sectarian authoritarianism. It is difficult to see how this would have been affected in the slightest by a U.S.-backed FSA (or, for that matter, by a residual U.S. military presence in Iraq, but that’s another debate for another day). There is certainly no reason to believe that the Islamic State and other extremist groups would have stayed away from such an ideal zone for jihad simply because Western-backed groups had additional guns and money.

So when the president called the idea as Horsesh*t…I believe he was accurate…..

(Newser) – President Obama has faced some tough criticism lately over his reluctance to get more involved in Syria; not least among his vocal critics is Hillary Clinton. But it seems he’s tired of the complaints from both parties. When Republican Sen. Bob Corker asked a wide-ranging and critical question about foreign policy, including Syria, at a July 31 meeting, Obama provided a detailed answer—before slapping the notion that arming the rebels could have improved the Syria situation. That idea is “horses—-,” he said, according to a lawmaker who attended the meeting and spilled the beans to the Daily Beast.

The White House noted that such an exchange had taken place, though neither it nor any lawmakers have acknowledged any coarse language, the Daily Beast and Politico note. “The president still feels very strongly that we are deluding ourselves if we think American intervention in Syria early on by assisting these rebels would have made a difference,” says Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel. “I disagree, respectfully. They were not looking for US troops, they were looking for help, and the Syria civil war started with the most noblest of causes.”

Let’s be honest….the rise of ISIS or what it called these days, IS….was inevitable…..the very nature of war especially a bloody civil war helps groups like this come to the forefront……too many people are calling for too much US intervention……will IS be stopped?  A great question and the best answer is ….YES.  But not by the US and its buddies….but rather the people that they are terrorizing at this time.

In Iraq it will be the Sunni tribes that hold the key to the defeat of IS……a new government could go a long way in securing their, the tribes, support in their fight with IS.  IS will be stopped…..sadly many lives will be lost and much more violence is to come…..