Better now than later

While The New York Times’ Paul Krugman is one of my favorite public thinkers, the reasoning in his Nov. 17 column is substantially flawed. He (and President Barack Obama) may be right that global warming is an even greater threat to the world than ISIS terrorism and in contending that ISIS will not be establishing a caliphate in Paris.

Nevertheless, Krugman underestimates the long-term threat from ISIS. He seems to assume that they will merely continue their current guerrilla tactics and weaponry – assault rifles, homemade bombs, etc. That assumption is almost certainly wrong.

Give ISIS enough time, and it will acquire chemical, bacterial and/or nuclear weaponry. We know enough about ISIS, and the genocidal nihilism that drives them, to know that they would not then hesitate to use such weapons, anywhere or everywhere.

For this reason, Obama's strategic objective to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS is inadequate. ISIS gives us no reasonable choice but to make the destruction of their movement a shorter-term imperative. This would require the level of coordinated efforts, with all of our allies that World War II required.

Let's drop the denial, and do what is necessary, in measurable time.

Content state:

Writing

In use by:

Reporter(s):

Lucke, Jamie - Lexington

Last modified:

11-20 04:53 PM - Gallman, Vanessa - Lexington

Requested size:

Actual size:

280 lin - 40.83i

Category:

Contextual use:

Normal

Description:

Correction:

All usages:

//

This story was originally published November 21, 2015 at 3:06 PM with the headline "Better now than later."