Talk show rhetoric doesn't equal good intelligence on the domestic danger posed by Iraq's terrorists.

How to Understand the ISIS Threat

By PHILIP GIRALDI

Americans have become so accustomed to going to war based on lies that they hardly flinch when the latest round of bellicose innuendo surfaces. The public knows that Iraq was a foreign policy disaster, that Syria is more of the same, and that the current transnational crisis encouraged by Washington’s missteps and engulfing both countries is likely to turn out even worse. All of which makes it more difficult for the usual inside the beltway players to come up with a compelling argument in favor of direct intervention in Iraq or providing still more aid to the “vetted” insurgents in Syria.

The latest selling point for the need to take firm action against the radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is that it is a threat against the United States and Western Europe. Indeed, it is probably the only argument that has any traction. British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned that his country will be targeted and that assistance to Baghdad is necessary, a refrain similar to that being voiced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has assured the American public that the Obama administration is taking steps to make sure that such an attack never materializes. Sen. Lindsey Graham claims that the “seeds of 9/11 are being planted all over Iraq and Syria,” while House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers warns that “this is a problem that we will have to face and we’re either going to face it in New York City or we’re going to face it here [in Iraq].”

Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker’s recent featured op-ed in theWashington Post is equally lacking in subtlety in making the argument for an American return to an active role in Baghdad: “We would be foolish to think that ISIS will not plan attacks against the West now that it has the space and security to do so.” The subliminal message being delivered is “act now before a guy with a beard, carrying a Kalashnikov, moves in next door.” Perhaps not so oddly, we have heard variations on that theme before, something about a mushroom cloud rising over Washington.

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