During the Democratic debate Saturday night, Hillary Clinton said that ISIS “cannot be contained, it must be defeated.” She also said, not once but twice, that this “cannot be an American fight” (while adding, “although American leadership is essential”).
But the fact is that if ISIS is to be destroyed, it will be because America decides it is an American fight. Of course, we should enlist all the allies we can; there is no need to go it alone. But bromides about American leadership will no longer do the trick. If ISIS “must” be defeated, then we must be willing to take responsibility for defeating them. Otherwise, we remain in what Churchill memorably called in 1936 an “era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients of delays.”
So Hillary Clinton should be called on her contradictory stance. But so should the Republican candidates. Who is serious about defeating and destroying ISIS? Or who puts an equal or greater priority on avoiding making this “an American fight?”
You can’t have it both ways.
