Local analysts discuss threat of ISIS on US soil

Airstrikes in Syria continued throughout this week as the U.S. and allied forces continue to fight against the growing threat of ISIS.

But that threat is being felt locally as well as, since some political scientists who are experts on this issue are saying we should not be sending U.S. forces into fight as ground troops, since that could worsen the problem for the U.S.

Idaho State University political science professor Dr. Sean Anderson is an expert on middle eastern affairs and conflict and said the growing Islamic military insurgency won’t end anytime soon, and sending American troops into Syria to fight is the wrong move.

“ISIS would love nothing better than for the United states to send ground forces in,” Anderson said. “They’ve seen our record in Lebanon, they’ve seen our record in Afghanistan, and they’ve seen our record in Iraq. We are never in it for the long haul.”

He said the best way to handle the situation is to keep our troops off the ground, and instead assist indirectly by providing aid to nearby countries who also have a vested interest in stifling the ISIS insurgency movement.

“The U.S. role is to provide material, intelligence, maybe military advisers, but not troops. Let the Muslim nations provide their troops to deal with Muslim-related problems,” Anderson added.

He said this is because he feels the U.S. is entering a war without a long-term vision or plan, and ISIS will use this to rally our current allies in the Muslim world against us.

“They could frame it in terms of the west versus Islam and then rally more legitimacy in the Muslim world,” Anderson said.

He said this could also help prevent the U.S. from simultaneously providing aid to the Assad regime, which has been a concern since the start of the insurgency.

He added, one of the biggest problems the United States is facing is the legitimacy issue, saying the Sunni militants need to know American troops will not enter the conflict and leave them feeling abandoned.

Anderson added this sore spot will be attractive for ISIS to jump on, acting as an aid for the group who, at the same time, is feeling discriminated against by the Assad regime.

He added only 10% of terrorist actions can be solved with military force, and ISIS is quickly generating the formula for a successful insurgency movement.

He said both the al Qaeda movement and the ISIS insurgency are made-up of highly intelligent, educated and trained militants who, often times don’t have a history of anything but clean records. Therefore, they have the ability to come into western allied countries such as Australia, the UK and the United States without trouble.

The difference between the two organizations is that ISIS is an offshoot of al Qaeda, and is trying to overthrow governments in order to establish an Islamic state.

Anderson added, we could possibly see smaller terrorist attacks or even just threats over time on U.S. soil through grassroots ISIS militants, but it’s highly unlikely to be concerned about a large-scale attack such as 9-11 since the group has not had enough time to develop an infrastructure to plan an attack.

He also estimated that middle eastern oil exports should not be impacted unless ISIS ends up capturing Kuwait.