Christopher Preble on ISIL and the Intervention Bias

As Americans
see images of New Hampshire-born journalist James Foley beheaded by
members of the extremist militant group known as the Islamic State
in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), some commentators insist that the
current chaos is a direct result of President Obama’s reluctance to
intervene decisively in the multi-year conflicts in Iraq and Syria.
Most notably, Hillary Clinton suggests that Obama’s failure to
aid the Syrian rebels led to the rise of ISIL. This is dubious,
writes Christopher Preble. The phenomenon of training people, and
then later fighting them, isn’t new. And yet, the certainty of
those who claim that early action to arm the Syrian rebels would
have produced a better outcome reflects the interventionist bias so
prevalent in Washington.

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