What if, militarily, we pull out of the Middle East

What would happen? I mean keep the Navy around for anti-piracy and to keep the trade routes clear, but no more invading, no more bases, no more bombing, just trade and that's it. Trade with anyone too. Don't care if it's ISIS, Palestinians, Iran, Saudis, Israel, whoever. Hell we can keep selling them military equipment too. Seems like it would be a good deal for us. We'd save a boat load of money and we wouldn't lose so many lives. We'd also be less likely to be attacked by terrorist since we wouldn't be there messing around with their bs.

 

You did not include Israel in your list. Are we to sell them arms with which to oppress Palestine? When we do, are we 'messing' around in Palestinian business, or are we messing around with Israeli business if we stop?

 

Oh sure. Leaving Afghanistan alone got us the 9-11 attacks.

 

Russia and Iran would take control of the entire region, take control of the world oil supply leading to massive escalation in prices and profits to Russia and Iran, and the world economy would go off the dollar for oil and as the world monetary system.

So, what happens is the USA economy completely crashes and Americans are trying to sneak into Mexico for jobs.

 

I wish the United States would pull out of the Middle East.

 

We did not leave Afghanistan alone, 1998:

http://www.cnn.com/US/9808/20/us.strikes.01/

 

I did include Israel on my list, read it again and notice the post has not been edited. I made it a point to put them there. I don't really like us selling them arms since they just give it to China and steal our tech anyway:

http://defensetech.org/2013/12/24/report-israel-passes-u-s-military-technology-to-china/

 

Currently OPEC, ([of which Iran is not a member] incorrect, disregard), controls oil in the region, not the US, so I'm not sure why you think China and Iran would control it. We also have massive reserves.



Edit: Even with the nuclear deal and lifting of sanctions with Iran, which I'm sure they will be grateful for, I don't see a real impact in oil prices from them. We sit on large reserves ourselves, we just haven't them to such a degree.

 

Because of the flipping Green Party(and those like them) who cry 'Bad for the environment'. Yeah, tell that to the OPEC countries. They sure as hell don't mind. It's like having food on your plate and then the kid pushes the plate away saying "food makes you fat". No, not exercising makes you fat. Sure, oil and stuff can be harmful if we overuse it, or if we let it spill but that's kind of the reason for safety precautions in the first place right?

 

I say we give each nation in that region 12 nuclear missiles then walk away. The left claim they are such a peaceful people so let's put it to a test.

 

What would happen? It's quite interesting what could happen, but none of it is very good.

ISIS could defeat iraq and syria and become a real country. Nearby countries, no longer having the backing of the USA, have either the need to or the strength to defeat ISIS and might let them be, leaving the world with yet another rogue state, but the most dangerous yet, which would undoubtedly try to hurt the west. Or, maybe the other countries will just continue to fuel the civil war, which will turn into a shia v sunni conflict engulfing the whole region. It would be an endlessly long and bloody war, and the countries will eventually commit to a full war, and there'd be a nuclear arms race with very probable use of the weapons. All countries in the region would also look to russia and china for help, becomming their allies.

It's just stupid to leave like that. Let's not.

 

The greens have a point, and lowering oil consumption is a good thing. I'm not a fan of government force to make vehicles more fuel efficient nor the subsidies given for hybrid/electrical cars, but I do see them as helping us use less oil. Give it another decade or two. We're already seeing governments talk about tracking and taxing mileage rather than continuing gas taxes due to lost revenue due to fuel efficiency. Less oil use = less OPEC influence.

 

Why would ISIS attack the west if we left them alone and just traded with them? Doesn't seem like they'd have a reason. Also if the whole area goes to war witheachother who cares. We'll keep selling weapons to them I'm sure and eventually they'll sort it out. It's not like we can control the region. We tried and we created ISIS. They need to solve their problems themselves, we can't do it for them.

 

A single inconsequential pinprick missile strike that accomplished absolutely nothing???

Get real.

 

When things seem to good to be true, they are.

 

Yes let's "get real". First off Afghanistan did not attack us, Al Queda did. They are who we launched our "pinprick missile strike" against after they bombed some of our embassies. 9/11 happened because of our messing around in the Middle East. We know this because the leader of Al Queda tells us this. Seems to me it wasn't about leaving Afghanistan alone so much as playing around with Arab nations rather than leaving them alone.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver

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Could you add something to this? I've yet to see a real answer, it's all fear and bs so far.

 

An interesting idea but would not trading with ISIS make us a part of their crimes against humanity? If ISIS has a plan of world domination then how would trading with them keep us safe?

 

No, what happened is two-fold. First of all, Hillary Clinton and President lame brain thought it was a good idea to arm the Libyan Rebels, under the false claim that they were being massacred by Qaddafi(They weren't). This led to the US-Nato led No Fly zone which was passed through the UN Security Council through the middle of the night. As we would later learn, the weapons would lead to the birth of ISIS and the instability would lead to the death of Ambassador Stevens and his colleagues.

If the idiocy to arm them wasn't enough, we know the rest of the story: Obama left a literal JV Squad in Iraq, presumably because he couldn't or didn't want to negotiate. Whatever forces we left there, clearly wasn't enough as ISIS spread its wings into Iraq next. And then onto Syria. And hence, here is the quick recap of President Obama's stupidity.

Proxy States had long been Washington's policy since at least 1975, but this is the biggest blowback(to use Libertarian terminology) quite possibly in US foreign policy history. But anyone could've seen how arming these people would be a bad idea for US Security. Luckily the Neo-Nazis in Ukraine have no such scope, but are ultimately of the same cloth. Yet John McCain wanted to fragment Ukraine and make the same mistake there.

But the biggest mistake that people's making about ISIS, is the application of rational thought to unrational minds. The question was always penned "Is Iran a Rational Actor?" Well, maybe not as Rational as Western Civilization but a hell of a lot more rational than ISIS. It's not because of our operations in Afghanistan/Iraq(or President dumbbell's withdrawal would've actually worked.).

It's because these "jihadists" find their purpose in "jihad", they've declared the West the "Great Satan". This is what motivates these fanatics. Look to what they said about Paris: "The dirty streets of France", were they really dirty? Of course not, but only in the minds of ISIS which abhors Western Freedom.

We need to abhor the fanatical terrorists in the same fashion as they abhor us. Only then will we make correct foreign policy decisions: Crush ISIS. Only when the Muslims of the Middle East are given a clear choice: Western Civilization or ISIS, will they choose the West. We have to declare the same total war on ISIS, vowing nothing but victory.

It's 1941 and our Pearl Harbor happened with the attack on France. It's time to respond.

 

I don't believe ISIS has plans for world domination. Their stated goal is some caliphate, and they're going to have a hard time maintaining it. They'll be too busy fighting their own population and whoever comes through to do much. As for crimes against humanity, unfortunately part of trade is just not caring. If the population doesn't like it then let us not buy their products. I doubt these ISIS ass hats are really any worse than other Arab nations. Some of the stories of Saddams torture and rape chambers are hard to even listen to. I know he's dead now, but even back in the gulf war it wasn't exactly good. Iraq was torturing Kuwaitis, and as they got pushed out who was doing the torture reversed. Horrible place the middle east, I will never go back unless I'm in uniform and armed again.

 

You are right, arming these idiots was a really stupid idea. So was invading Iraq. That's why the sooner we stop this BS and get out of the region the better. They may attack us in order to get us back into the middle east so they can recruit more members (worth noting they do want us there because they need a bad guy to rally against, sounds oddly familiar eh), but if we resist their efforts will die out. We can't fix the middle east, and our meddling is just delaying the bitter war they must fight there to sort themselves out. We need to just sit back, buy their oil, tell them weapons, let them kill eachother. It sounds absolutely evil, but what more can we really do? Is it worth bankrupting ourselves to fight an eternal war against monsters in third world (*)(*)(*)(*) holes? I don't believe it is. There is no end to this fight until they figure it out themselves, we can't help them.

Also, if ISIS did become a legitimate global threat, no problem with us going in there, destroying it, and telling them to try again. Short of being a actual threat though just let them do the thing and hope the locals eventually get pissed off enough to rise up and murder them all.

 

And naturally you believe him...........

 

I am all for turning our backs to the middle east. All of it.
Oil, trade, Israel, EAU. All of it. Isolationism was actually working great until Pearl Harbor. At that point we should have just wiped out Japan.

 

We didn't have the means to at that point.

And how can you say "isolationism was working great" by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Yes. Why would he lie? What would he gain? Why bother making an announcement saying "thus is why I hate you" if you're not telling the truth?

 

We were pulling out of the depression, factory work was up, people were getting back to work.