Andrew J. Bacevich:

… Today, three-and-a-half decades after America’s War for the Greater Middle East was launched, that region is less stable than it was when U.S. forces first began making their appearance.

Costs, sustained as well as exacted, have been considerable. Successes have been few and transitory. …

… In our day, it’s not Saudi Arabia and Iraq that the United States should worry about defending, but Canada and Venezuela. Given startling adjustments in estimates of accessible global oil and natural gas reserves, the United States can count on being able to satisfy its energy requirements by drawing entirely on sources within its own hemisphere for many decades to come. We don’t need the Gulf.

So although ISIL is as vile and vicious an organization as humankind has managed to produce in recent memory, it does not pose a particular danger to the United States. …

U.S. policymakers who conclude otherwise — who persist in claiming that it’s incumbent upon the United States to “degrade and defeat” ISIL — are throwing good money after bad. …

Politico – ISIL is a problem, but not America’s problem

Andrew J. Bacevich is writing a military history of America and the Middle East.

American troops should put boots on the ground … in America. Bring the troops home.

related – Why Does the U.S. Have So Many Military Bases Abroad?