United States: Irrational Actor

Given the disparate motives of the various parties, it is unwise for U.S. officials to view the fight against ISIS as a stark conflict between good and evil. Instead, it is a complex, multisided, regional power struggle in which murky alliances and questionable, if not sleazy, objectives are the norm. U.S. leaders need to ponder the options very carefully, because Washington is barging into a geopolitical minefield with a high potential for policy failure and frustration. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. (National Interest - America's Fatal Blunder)

Does anyone really believe the "strategy" of Obama's amateur warlords (John Heinz-Kerry, John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Samantha Power and Susan Rice) will produce anything resembling success in the Middle East?

Can anyone explain what "success" would look like?

Does anyone really believe the "good" Syrian terrorists they propose to train and equip can defeat Assad's Russia- and Iran-backed regime, while simultaneously vanquishing ISIS?

Can anyone explain why the "good" Syrian terrorists won't take the money and run into the arms of ISIS, providing them another bonanza of munitions and trained fighters?

President Obama's ISIS/Syria policy absurd, and yet no one is throwing the BS flag. If only it were Bush doing this, at least some tired hippie college professors and OWS rabble would attempt rouse themselves enough to get a news camera’s attention...

It doesn't add up. I've tried following the money, exploring different angles... All I can come up with is that this is expensive political theater to prop up the president's image.

The Islamic world is a madhouse, but each state is acting in its own rational interest.

The Saudis and the Gulf states fund ISIS and oppose Iran's BFF Assad because they don't want Iran running through the Middle East like crap through a goose, and their devil's bargain is a bribe to the terrorists to go pick on someone, anyone other than their own rotten regimes.

Turkey refuses to fight ISIS because that organization is killing Kurds, which gives Erdogan and his filthy Islamists great glee.

Iraq is split along the old Kurd, Sunni, Shia lines, and Iran is prepared to help us defend Baghdad while leaving the Sunnis in Anbar to the predations of ISIS. Iraqi Sunnis welcome ISIS because of their mutual hatred of Baghdad's Shiite regime.

The Euros and the UN dither and blather because they are toothless, balless, feckless, hopeless.

The US is the only nation whose actions are unexplainable, and possibly irrational.