Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research writes:
It is time for the US to recognize that since it launched its war on terror, the scourge has only spread. The Afghanistan-Pakistan belt has remained “ground zero” for transnational terrorism, and once-stable countries like Libya, Iraq, and Syria have emerged as new hubs.
….Making matters worse, Obama plans to use the same tactics to fight the Islamic State that led to its emergence: authorizing the CIA, aided by some of the region’s oil sheikhdoms, to train and arm thousands of Syrian rebels. It is not difficult to see the risks inherent in flooding the Syrian killing fields with even more and better-armed fighters.
The US may have some of the world’s top think tanks and most highly educated minds. But it consistently ignores the lessons of its past blunders – and so repeats them. US-led policies toward the Islamic world have prevented a clash between civilizations only by fueling a clash within a civilization that has fundamentally weakened regional and international security.
An endless war waged on America’s terms against the enemies that it helped to create is unlikely to secure either steady international support or lasting results…..The risk that imperial hubris accelerates, rather than stems, Islamist terror is all too real – yet again.
Read more at America’s Never-Ending War by Brahma Chellaney – Project Syndicate.