Your Other Left: NATO's Liability: Sultan Erdogan's Ottoman Nostalgia

The Turkish President is an Ottoman nostalgia fetishist, aspiring Islamist caliph, Sultan of sectarian war by proxy, Hitler enthusiast, and jihadist sponsor. He’s an amateur semanticist and lexicographer who is determined to expand the definition of the word terrorist to include journalists.

Erdogan’s AKP or, Justice and Development Party, has systematically reversed a century of Turkish republican democracy. They deny their democratic opposition at every opportunity, arrest and prosecute everyone (from small children who draw cartoons of the Sultan to German citizens who make jokes about his royal heinous). Shall we forget his brutal ethnic cleansing campaign against the Kurds? Violence and Kafkaesque violations of civil rights are the norm for politicians for AKP opponents, including the pro-Kurdish and pro-democracy HDP, as well as Kurdish civilians, Kurdish grandmothers and writers alike, who have the audacity to terrorize the sanctimonious Sultan by way of their egregious acts of Kurdishness and for writing things which hurt the priggish president’s fee fees.

Turkey Under Erdogan

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set Turkey on the fast track to dictatorship. Turkey under Erdogan is the ultimate NATO liability and after years spent as the perennial EU candidate, he has opted for the stultifying strategy of supporting ISIS and Al Qaeda. He’s attacking American and European allies in Syria – shooting down a Russian jet, taunting Vladimir Putin, openly dismantling democracy and civil society, and extorting billions of euros out of the EU. He cannot pretend his country is an example of sophisticated Europe. Steadily, over the preceding fourteen years, this reactionary has taken every step to nurture the bitterness which the portentous Turkish nationalism, Sunni tribalism, Salafi Islamism, and Ottoman nostalgia of 2016 were built on.

He is resolute about transforming Turkey into an Islamist paradise; one that is free of pesky Kurdish, Shia, and Alawite peoples within or just beyond their borders. He is through with the archaic tedium of open society hallmarks like democracy, pluralism, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and civil rights for women. Erdogan is equally determined to allow Turkish citizens free access across European borders.

His Brave New Turkey will seek to annex and reassemble the remnants of the Sykes Picot experiment that ripped the Ottoman Empire to shreds and scattered the once mighty caliphate into small colonies which were carved according to resources. The Ottoman caliphate was broken into pieces which were kept under the watchful eye of a monarchy or dictatorship. If you were lucky enough to be the Turks, however, you had a democratic revolution at a time when half of Europe was falling to totalitarian fascists, totalitarian communists, or fighting the odious malignancy of the German NSDAP.

Turkey’s Diminishing Past Progress

The burgeoning Turkish state was fought for and built into an enduring modern secular democratic republic. The Turkish nation had problems and reactionary elements to be sure, but a new secular republic from the ashes of an empire that had fought on the losing side of the Great War managed to endure some tumultuous decades. The Turks built a standout society with a world class education system in a location wedged between the Soviet Union and Gulf kleptocracies on the eastern border, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. A century of continental struggles, civil war, and ethnic strife – just beyond the Mediterranean in the Balkan peninsula and across Eastern Europe – made the former caliphate seem quite serene. For a moment.

Turkey has occasionally proven adept at choosing the ugly, imperialist, and regressive path in spite of a clear memory of a history of empire. It saw the Ottoman genocide of Armenians, Yezidis and Assyrians, multiple bloody alliance realignments, and it had a front row seat to watch its neighbors locked in a brutal cycle of struggles. As a keystone NATO ally, Turkey played a unique role in the Cold War. The strategic bulwark against the Soviet expansion to the west (the oil rich gulf states), was the location for American missiles aimed at the Soviet Union. They were quietly removed after Kennedy and Kruschev’s idiotic nuclear edge-play over Cuba.

The era of Turkey as a NATO liability began with the 1974 invasion of the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. Cyprus was later to join the EU and has been a United Nations member since 1960. The invasion precipitated the Greek plan to annex Cyprus, and Turkey took control of 40% of the country. Since then, Turkey has received a remarkable four-decades-long silence in protest of this criminal occupation in which the Cypriots, under Turkish rule, see their benevolent colonizers yank large sums of cash directly out of their bank accounts with no recourse.

Holy Territory and the Israel-Palestine Conflict

The long running cause celebre of much of the anti-Western left, most Arab nations, and many Muslim majority states has been the so-called Israeli occupation of Palestine. With a much smaller population at play – few who participate in the settlement of Palestinian territory – it is the fact that the imperfect Israel is a state on land holy to every regional theistic tribe that fuels the never ending debate. The secular democracy that ethnic Palestinians do not wish to leave, let alone return to the fiefdom of militant terror cult Hamas, is the object of global hysteria, racial and religious hatred, cultural resentment, mystery, envy, and conspiracy theory paranoia. What do you know about Cyprus though?

Turkey’s illegal occupation and dehumanizing treatment of Cyprus is a long running Western European and American embarrassment. Turkey still occupies a UN member state, but how many people do you know who frequently attend demonstrations to protest this NATO ally in occupation of nearly half of a European Union member state? Where is the solidarity to the Cypriots who are used as a piggy bank?

The Sultan’s Allies and Adversaries

Erdogan has consolidated his power over the last fourteen years and he now openly declares that freedom and democracy have no value in Turkey. Journalists are terrorists and Turkish citizens who criticize, satirize or otherwise offend the sultan are arrested. Erdogan’s closing society is getting more barbaric, more tribal, more dogmatic, more bigoted, and more dangerous for minority groups and social outcasts. The Sultan can’t help himself it seems. Erdogan has had a beef-on-sight relationship with Russian despot Vladimir Putin, but the two men share so much. They both embrace theocratic fascists, terrorists, and nationalist political movements. Both conduct proxy actions against neighboring countries. Both oversee reactionary governments in former empires where democratic systems are falling by the wayside, and where residual imperial nostalgia is celebrated. There is little resistance to the swift transformation into full blown totalitarian states (organized around propaganda, reactionary populism, national religion, and an aggressive pursuit of war).

Erdogan seems to have stumbled in the eyes of, well, everyone except his friends and his base. Those, and some tiny subset of deranged nihilists who enjoy his Putinesque swagger, mustachioed-violence, and his belligerent message of dissonance. He is oblivious to the fact his contradictory statements are a matter of public record, but this doesn’t matter to the kind of oddball characters who don’t pretend to mask their insatiable appetite for the explosive collapse of society.

Some of Erdogan’s allies are the suicidal terrorists who want a theocratic slave-state on earth, and a penthouse suite after-party in heaven where they can rape and torture 72 virgins as it pleases them. In Erdogan’s Turkey we see the unification of every insidious discipline. The principles of human rights, civil rights, and individual liberty are out of style among leftists who are quick to defend the sectarian tribal cultists and theocratic fascists of every stripe. The Erdogan problem is not on the minds, it seems, of the Western Left.

These beasts of hatred, ideological orthodoxy, intellectual laziness, and absolutism so often admire Erdogan’s unencumbered aggression towards Russia, Assad, and the Kurdistan Worker’s Party or PKK (who are a criminal imperialist dictatorship client of the Iranian Ayatollah’s Guardian Council), genocidal ba’athist cartel client of IRGC, and militant nationalist anarcho-socialist guerilla car bomb cult with a propensity for self sabotage, respectively.

Creating a Refugee Crisis

Erdogan undoubtedly experienced a thrill when he committed the epic yet brazenly sloppy crime of the century: the extortion of billions from the EU for the phony refugee crisis, a portion of which he manipulated by forcing people to repopulate and migrate en masse. Erdogan saw that he could gain from the systematic bombardment of Europe by Gulf state, Afghan, and African refugees who were fleeing jihadists like the Islamic State. He doesn’t care if you fled cruel and genocidal regimes. Nothing matters more to him than the proxy war between the IRGC and the House of Saud being fought through the Syrian civil war with pick-up wars between Turkey and Kurds, Assad and Sunni Arab militias, or Al Qaeda and ISIS. Most people wouldn’t want to wind up in Turkey after escaping the evil and twisted never-ending death orgy of Boko Haram or the Taliban. Erdogan is taking advantage of the massive number of African migrants descending on Europe, and he has allowed ISIS, al Nusra, foreign recruits, and any anti-Assad or anti-Kurd force to cross back and forth over a 60 mile jihadi turnstile of the Turkish Syrian border. ISIS fighters have been given refuge and preferential treatment in Turkey complete with special medical care provided under the management of the Sultan’s daughter.

Russia, Turkey, and the United States

Then we have the looming chaos that is the proxy war between Russia and the United States. It hovers lazily above it all like a smelly Lovecraftian vapor intruding into every aspect of life and personal space. This conflict between the Islamic Republic of the Iran IRGC twelver cult and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Syria, in Lebanon, and at the gas pump is that much worse because of the maniacal Erdogan’s involvement.

He is losing the trust of his western allies, who have been increasingly uncomfortable with his maneuvers against the Kurdish YPG who fight ISIS in Syria, the Kurdish civilians, journalists and political opponents, and the melee between Erdogan and Putin which saw a Russian jet cross into Turkish airspace with no concern – since they’ve tested several NATO members air space this way. Turkey was the wrong NATO member to test: the Russian jet was quickly shot down by Turkmen loyal to the Erdogan regime.

The U.S. led coalition against the Islamic state was happy to be using Turkey for the convenient air base after Turkey was no help with the wars or actions in Iraq or Syria previously. The headlines were jubilant: “Turkey enters fight against ISIS, jihad group is in trouble now”. This, of course, was authentic frontier gibberish by a lazy press who knew little about Turkey besides their NATO membership and EU candidacy. The foreign policy establishment and intelligentsia were barely any better, and perhaps this has to do with former CIA Director and paid U.S. lobbyist Porter Goss representing the Erdogan regime’s interests.

Turkey declared they’d attack ISIS and about six of their bombs fell somewhere near ISIS positions with zero casualties. At the same time, the NATO ally rained hundreds of bombs on the PKK, YPG, and Kurdish civilians in Syria and Iraq. The PKK is some kind of extreme leftist cult and they commit guerilla terrorist acts akin to the IRA in the UK or Basque separatists in Spain. However, they rescued Yazidis on Mount Sinjar, and even though the U.S. lists the PKK as a terrorist group, there was a working relationship between the PKK and the U.S. prior to Turkey’s entrance into the conflict.

Erdogan’s Support of the Caliphate

The U.S. takes Erdogan’s help while ignoring (or paying lip service to) him for his requests for support in his war against the PKK. Perhaps if he hadn’t so blatantly attacked YPG positions and Kurdish civilians in Bashur he could have received some support, but his position that the YPG is a terrorist group is not shared by Americans who have worked with YPG effectively against ISIS. Perhaps he would deserve some benefit of the doubt if he hadn’t behaved like a thug in response to the HDP election gains and if he hadn’t exposed his undemocratic and inhumane police state actions on civilians and political opponents in Cizre. Maybe he’d garner some respect if he hadn’t ordered the Turkish military to stand on the Turkish border and watch as ISIS bombed the Kurdish city of Kobane into oblivion. Turkish troops standing a few hundred meters from Kobane with a full arsenal, missile launchers, and tanks without engaging ISIS looked bad, but it has been confirmed that Turkish military were there to cover ISIS as they returned into Turkey. Captured ISIS fighters have spoken of their leadership announcing that the Turkish military was helping, and that Erdogan himself is a supporter of the caliphate.

Red Flags

Russia has been behaving aggressively for nearly a decade. The agitprop reality show and the client services clause keeping Putin’s client Assad in power and further embarrassing the U.S. are not totally unexpected. The belligerent despotic turn, bellicose behavior, and the bitter persona of Sultan Erdogan should not be surprising. Casual observers could see through the AKP and their thin skinned fascist, genocidal, and imperialist ambitions.

He has severe red flags. The Sultan has revealed his unambiguous totalitarian, fascist, Islamist, and kleptocratic trajectory through:

• His willingness to support jihadists.
• His police action against journalists, political opponents and other critics.
• Openly denying civil liberties to Kurds, all political opposition, and critical media figures.
• His election strategy (when he didn’t like his losing election results he forced a recount and campaigned by killing Kurds).
• His Hitler fantasy remarks.

Like any political boss with a crony operation, Erdogan has his country’s political pulse seemingly all sussed out, fragile though his grip on power will prove to be in time. The Sultan has, however, completely misread his place in global politics. Turkey, under AKP government, has squandered too much faith and prestige in short order. Power has blinded Erdogan. He thought the west would go along with his iron-and-ham-fisted maneuvers despite the media spotlight shining on Syria. The consensus thinking had improved just as there was media coverage of Russia’s role as Assad’s airpower/bodyguard and official mouthpiece for the aggressive theocratic axis because: Russia Today Orthodox Church Federation, Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Shia-Alawite criminal syndicate of Assad regime forces and the IRGC pet terrorists known as Hezbollah know Turkey has played a dangerous game with ISIS.

Kurds are beloved across the west, eastern Europe and the entire free world for their courage and success against the Islamic state and for their example of establishing open society and democratic traditions informed by a unique blend of left wing socialism and western liberalism in a region where the only true democracy, Israel, is seen as a villain by the entire neighborhood of nations, regardless of sectarian differences.

As much as everyone (except Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Jeremy Corbyn type leftists) agrees that Bashar al Assad must eventually go, the world is pragmatic in understanding that if Assad was removed without a replacement government lined up, and before the various parties including ISIS are defeated or isolated, the vacuum would lead to more war not less. Even if Assad goes and ISIS is too weak to take more territory, the proxy war between Sunni sponsors and Iran over control of Syria is not likely to go smoothly or quiet down.

What can the West do in this Syrian conflict?

The Russians are doing what they need to do to protect Assad and the US should leave them to it. Let Putin inherit this quagmire while the U.S. and the coalition against ISIS help the Kurds secure Iraq, Bashur and Rojava. Perhaps Iran will be preoccupied with their Syrian experiment leaving the Iraqi Shia government free to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Sunni leadership, and the better-late-than-never three-state Mesopotamia can begin with some sort of economic agreement (the three Iraqi partitions will depend on a resource and revenue sharing scheme to survive, without which the influence of Iran and outside interests would become too strong and peace among the Iraqi trinity would be threatened).

Our allies are against each other. The Putin-Iran-Assad axis is playing games and hurling agitprop nonsense against the U.S., Kurds, Turkey, and all the Saudi proxy groups, with cross purposes. We can focus on Iraq and our friendship with the Kurds and Yazidis. The Kurds in Iraq have demonstrated their potential as a model society in the Middle East and the West needs another regional model and partner besides Israel. A democratic Kurdistan could replace the flailing AKP Turkey for military and strategic purposes. Iraqi Kurds have been brutal to Yazidis and Assyrians and the West can’t effectively encourage Kurds to be civilized towards the Yazidis and Assyrians if the West can’t promote Western principles. Americans may not know about Erdogan, but the rest of the planet does, and the credibility of liberal society and Western power is weakened due to our failure to hold our friends to a higher standard, recognize our enemies, and stand for our principles.

Suspend Turkey from NATO until the AKP is out.

The Migrant Crisis and The "Universal Eligibility to be Noble."

Whether nationalism can be harnessed positively to address the mass immigration problem in Europe depends on the nature of the already thin premise of nationalism.Ethnic nationalism, like any identity tribalism, is treacherous.Class or populist nationalism is no different.The only type of nationalism that can be positive is a multicultural community partisanship or solidarity nationalism.People can bond through shared experience and common struggle in common space, even if they are different ethnicities, religions and any other arbitrary identity grouping.

In diverse cities in the US one could go to a bar or a carnival and witness the multicultural American nationalism at peak cohesion. Parts of New Jersey or Florida where there are Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists, blacks, whites, Asians, Latinos and communities of eastern European and Mediterranean immigrants come together rather easily.The American immigrant communities retained their cultural identities to a certain extent but assimilated more and more with each generation.

Europe has sold themselves on the idea of a European version of the American melting pot as if it were a 'cash and carry' policy to be applied at will.The cosmopolitan aesthetic and multicultural make up of the United States was achieved over two centuries, but it hasn't been smooth sailing by any means. Assassinations have been commonplace and polarization ebbs and flows from one period of tumult to the next. We had a civil war over slavery and there have been many smaller bloody conflicts in nearly every region.These events gradually fade from memory due to the unique character of the American ideal and immigrants the American dream attracts.

America is a nation unlike most others because it is based on not just ideals but radical enlightenment ideals specifically, rather than most other nations based on kinship.Solidarity nationalism has survived in this country due to the optimism and spirit of immigrants and natural born alike, but it cannot be maintained if there is mass immigration, and segregated tribal ghettos.When disparate cultures who think with their blood or superstitionIf you consider old world wounds from the last century, to say nothing of the preceding 20, the only way other countries can achieve civic cohesion is slowly and with emphasis on soft indoctrination.I'd love to see dependency states in Europe and elsewhere achieve American type cohesion and better, but the rush job to attract immigrants just wasn't done wisely at all.

People from all over the world wanted to come to America because it is the only nation in which one can become not just a citizen but an actual American.If I moved to France or Vietnam I could become a citizen but I'd never become French or Vietnamese.There were unique circumstances that made this possible.It is worth mentioning also that the waves of immigration to the United states came from European countries and colonies with similar cultural DNA and the combination of deliberate propaganda and word of mouth made this egalitarian new world a destination for people who were seeking the solidarity nationalism experience of the American dream.

The "universal eligibility to be noble" still attracts new and future Americans, but Europe was simply in too big a hurry to attract sinew and didn't do the necessary ideological propaganda to westernize the newcomers.Though it has been relaunched in recent years, it was a mistake to shut down radio free Europe/radio liberty after the fall of the Soviet Union.The cold war ended, but the campaign to advance universal civil rights and human solidarity should have been pushed harder not withdrawn.We are in for one bloody hell of a century.

Your Other Left Video: Doing It Wrong, or If We Can Brexit They Can Fix It

A rant about brexit and the lack of dialectic in our current multitude of schismatic subjects.

Your Other Left: United States & Turkey: an Exercise in Masochism

                   
The half billion dollar program to recruit and train a moderate Syrian rebel force to fight ISIS has been a failure. This is due largely to the fact that nearly everyone fighting in Syria is more interested in fighting Bashar Assad's government than fighting ISIS.  Its not like we in the west are fans of Assad (his biggest international fan is Vladimir Putin) but with the country in chaos and full of domestic and foreign warring factions, removal of Assad's government root and stalk would only perpetuate and worsen the chaos.  If some sense of order is restored then a new government would be a better prospect, especially if the civil servants, bureaucrats and military leadership can keep some semblance of continuity.  This is incredibly naive in light of everything we know about the Syrian civil war.  Assad is going to be removed and his government will be extirpated.  We cannot save him and we don't want to.  

Our alliance with regional players who are actively sabotaging our efforts makes the entire prospect of stabilizing Syria seem far fetched.  The United States relationship with Turkey is the most cringe-worthy example of this duplicitous trend. The willingness of Turkish officials to do business with ISIS and al Qaeda and refrain, until recently, to take any part in the fight against ISIS seems to have been forgotten.  The United States government seems to be ignoring the Turkish attacks on Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq and domestic police violence against Kurdish dissidents inside Turkey.  Turkish politics has descended into blatant authoritarianism.  The so called 'buffer zone' that Turkey wants between itself and Syria would be another in the series of new Berlin walls that are popping up all over the globe.  

This 'buffer zone' is least of all the distressing behavior of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  Since his party, the AKP, lost it's majority in recent elections, his covert support for ISIS and his unhinged paranoia about the Kurds and Assad have become more transparent and more well known.   We in the west can't even acknowledge the seriousness of ISIS as an enemy or measure our successes and failures on the battlefield since the administration, congress and the Pentagon have no coherent voice on this war. The assessment of this foe and the threat they pose has been delusional from the outset. The effort to motivate the various regional interests to work together against the Islamic State is a halfhearted approach to a serious problem.  Almost no regional party of importance is interested in the western objective which is eliminating ISIS as top priority



.

Turkey has worked hand in hand with ISIS and al Qaeda to fight the Kurds and the Assad regime and these relationships have not ended.  Saudi Arabia has been working with al Qaeda in Yemen.  Iran has a clear desire to fight ISIS, but they are terrible to the Kurds, supportive of terror groups in Yemen and have genocidal aspirations for Israel.  Iraq is just trying not to fall apart, but the Iranian influence has filled the void left by the US.  We can hope the new leadership can free itself from Iranian influence to some degree and make progress bringing moderate Sunnis back to the government. Iraq is still no accepting all of the arms the US has offered, and since they're the middle man between the US and the Peshmerga, this is an embarrassment.

The only people who are only interested in fighting ISIS happen to be the people who value pluralistic democracy, humanitarianism and equal rights above theocracy and tribalism.  The Kurds are eager to trade resources and ideas with any people that wish for such peaceful engagement.  Shouldn't the US policy be to double down on our support for the Kurds, who have been most effective at defeating and scattering ISIS from towns in Syria and Iraq, rather than this masochistic organizing strategy?

The creepy crawl of the Turkish state towards fascism and their known terror sponsorship should negate the longstanding relationship with the west, at least until democracy is restored and the police violence is stopped.  The various parties in the  region are more worried about Assad returning to power, greater Iranian or Saudi influence over Iraq and Syria, and Kurdish territorial expansion or establishment of a Kurdish state than about ISIS. Our efforts in Syria, Yemen, Iran and the region at large have put us on both sides of many confrontations.  Our support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen has helped al Qaeda. Our dealings with Turkey have hurt our Kurdish allies and helped ISIS and al Qaeda.  We don't need to cater to these regimes and double agent diplomacy serves only to drag this war

This absurd strategy is steeped in our geopolitical identity crisis.  Do we in the west care about preserving our principles and confronting undemocratic ideas? Might we forge new alliances with people because they share our values instead of the double agent diplomacy we've been mired in with burdensome friends like Saudi Arabia and Turkey? The fear of a Kurdish state is inspiring the Turkish collusion with ISIS and al Qaeda as much as the fear of Syrian Baathists returning to power.  The Kurds in Syria and Turkey, to their credit have said they do not want a state of their own but rather self determination and autonomy within existing states. 

While the Kurds have taken territory from ISIS, they've been hospitable to inhabitants and refugees and tried to deliver basic services.  Maybe what we ought to be doing is promoting the Kurds as an example of democratic ideals and altruism. A Kurdish state would be a strategic victory against the theocratic fascists and corrupt regimes in the middle east.

I think we ought to arm, support and equip the Kurds to completely secure Kurdish territory first.  From there we have several options and nine are certain to be available.  One possible outcome is that the Kurds defeating ISIS savagely and decisively will decimate the morale of ISIS fighters, dry up their recruitment and encourage others to fight ISIS in other territory.  Ultimately this whole fight requires unwavering leadership from the US and allies.  Part of that leadership may be to encourage Kurdish and international volunteer fighters to go beyond Kurdish territory simply to remove ISIS, free slaves and confiscate weapons and resources.  If the coalition is more committed to defeating these monsters, then the Kurds and other allies may be encouraged to take ISIS controlled territory for humanitarian purposes, not to hold the territory or annex it.  This means the forces fighting ISIS beyond Kurdish territory cannot fight under a Kurdish flag or Kurdish militia emblem.  A new regional force like NATO, if not NATO itself, including Kurdish, Iraqi, Syrian and international volunteers could take the remaining ISIS territory and hand it back to locals once peace is restored.  This is not too likely a scenario, but at the moment no good ideas seem likely.  Leadership is needed to defeat ISIS.  We need to forget this exercise in futility of begging others in the region to fight this enemy.  The US and UK have been in the middle east for so long that it's silly to pretend we can extricate ourselves while conducting air strikes and diplomacy.  We have alienated Arabs just by being there.  Lets go all in with the Kurds to defeat ISIS quickly, surge style, rather than continue a strategy that accepts ISIS as a long term reality.

Counter insurgency expert and pillow talk media source David Petraeus has been suggesting that the coalition work with the Syrian al Qaeda affiliate, al Nusra Front against ISIS since they are indeed more moderate than ISIS and he has successfully recruited al Qaeda militants in Iraq to assist US forces briefly in the past.  First of all, it isn't necessary to work with al Qaeda against ISIS since we are already working with both al Qaeda and ISIS through our masochistic relationship with Turkey. There is only one available option that would not indirectly aid at least one jihadist group, and that is to go all in with the Kurds to take and secure the Kurdish areas and remove ISIS from Iraqi cities. If we have military success and effectively diminish ISIS territory, the humiliation will start to dry up their recruitment and it will only be a matter of time before ISIS is isolated in Raqqa. At that point, everyone who was reluctant to help before will smell blood in the water and begin fighting over who will take Raqqa. In the meantime we will have killed a good amount of barbaric thugs and freed some slaves. Every minute we are not freeing slaves is a minute we are complicit in the slavery, rape and torture we have the means to stop. And nobody is going to tell me we have to work with al Qaeda to get this done.