Making ISIS History
By
Leonard Zwelling
Like cancer, ISIS is a malignancy.
The radical jihadists are tearing up the Middle East
wrestling with Al Qaeda for supremacy among the lunatics, competing to supplant
Western civilization with Sharia Law in a caliphate.
Perhaps President Obama needs to consult with some
oncologists on how to deal with a cancer like this. There is really only one
way. Eradicate it.
The question is not whether but when. The question is not if but how. The longer
the President waits to lead a coalition against ISIS to rid the world of this
menace, the greater the effort that will be needed when the decision to destroy
ISIS is finally made.
Any oncologist can tell you that an incremental strategy is
only justified to prevent lethal toxicities. If you can cut it out, do so. If
electromagnetic beams can destroy the cancer, that’s fine, too. If drugs of
various kinds are needed, the preservation of the host is essential and may
lead to that incremental approach, but it is the least likely to lead to
eradication.
The same is true of political movements that threaten the
world order. ISIS is such a cancer. ISIS must be eradicated and the sooner the
better. If that requires 100,000 American ground troops and a standing force to
maintain order in the region after the victory, so be it. It’s not like we don’t still have troops in
South Korea.
There should be no question that this is America’s fight. We
are the world’s beacon of hope and freedom and, in all likelihood, will continue
to be so for the foreseeable future. It is all well and good to say that Arab
nations, the European community and the Russians should have a stake in getting
rid of ISIS. But they won’t now any more than they were able to in WWII.
ISIS is a living, breathing, growing cancer that has now
metastasized to Paris, Mali, Beirut, and the skies over the Sinai. Terrorism
also has run amuck over the African continent and Australia. This is WWIII.
Calling a cancer a “tumor” does not make it less malignant.
Calling ISIS the JV does not make that so either. When all else fails, perhaps
the American President ought to try to do his job and force the issue at the UN
and formulate a strategy in which all those with skin in the game, which is
just about everyone, contribute to the eradication of the ISIS cancer. But make
no mistake. At the head of the operating table for the moment of extirpation of
ISIS from the world, must be the United States.
The longer we wait to initiate therapy, the more likely the
adverse events. An oncologist should not lead the fight against ISIS, but the
principles of cancer therapy apply. Don’t over think it. Make ISIS history.
