So, vna, what would you suggest?
Usually I'm reasonably up to date on these things.
Just now I'm looking at my 5th week off sick with stress. Got two parents with dementia, who have stubbornly refused help and as I knew would eventually happen - well the wheels have fallen off. So since December my life has been pretty hellish to say the least. Add in an incompetent solicitor, a until now silent sibling butting in, a crap POA document, both parents going down one after the other with a virus..... and well I could go on and on.
So I'm behind the curve on this.
But I would say we are paying the price of arrogant and incompetent foreign policy spanning the last 60 years or so.
What we do have is huge influence over Saudi, Qatar, Kuwait and the other Wahhabist Sunni states. We need to stop them and their buddies funding ISIS. Follow the money that is what is happening.
We also have to deal with the biggest evil first - ISIS. We are correct about one thing - they are out of control. We made a mistake in not backing Assad, and a big mistake in supporting the ISIS influenced rebels that opposed him. We need to open diplomatic channels with Iran (we can see that happening already). We need to start talking to Putin. Putin rightly backed Assad along with their ally Iran.
Israel. It's about time we exercised our influence over Israel. This seems impossible as the USA seems incapable of standing up to Israel. But we have a moral obligation to limited our trade with Israel. It's about time we refused to sell or maintain any Israeli military equipment for a start. We can influence them without the USA, as the USA is Israel's only steadfast ally.
But sorry I haven't read a newspaper in about two months. I'm way behind the curve now.
If you do want to understand what is happening you could do a lot worse than reading Robert Fisk's and Patrick Cockburn's reports (or books) - they are two of the foremost journalistic experts in the world on these matters.
I don't dare challenge the focers here, but this post is 100% true.
While ordinary western citizen feels no responsibility (rightly too) for what is going in Middle East, it would be disingenuous to think it has nothing with to do with the Governments and industries they supported and were benefiting from. It is NOT wrong to act in self interest - which is what most people do anyway, so Governments are just reflection of this - how it does not mean you can wash your hands off this and say "oh look at those crazies, why are they like that"!!