Diplomacy Is the Way To Beat the ‘Islamic State’

http://time.com/3274038/diplomacy-is-the-way-to-beat-the-islamic-state/

TIME

Diplomacy Is the Way To Beat the ‘Islamic State’

• Patricia DeGennaro

Sept. 5, 2014

The Obama administration is reportedly laying the groundwork for a military expansion into Syria from Iraq to pummel the IS—this is the wrong move

During the short drive from Beirut toward Damascus, our taxi turned off the road and pulled into a refugee camp in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley. As a journalist and academic who writes about international security, I wanted to see the refugee situation I had read about for myself. I watched as a truckload of women went to work in in Lebanon’s most fertile area, gathering vegetables and grapes for the area’s prized vineyards. They earn a pittance – about three dollars per day– so they can pay rent to the owners of the land where they occupy makeshift shelters.
People huddle behind burlap, peeking through doorways covered by sheets to see visitors. Children sneak up and as I turn, they giggle and run away. They ask for nothing. Empty water bottles litter the camp. I am humbled at the generosity the residents show. They invite us in for coffee and tea and I feel ashamed of myself as I drink. They have so little, but it would insult them if I declined.
This is one of many camps that now scatter the region. The United Nations estimates that up to two million Syrians are now refugees, many housed in Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. Another two million are also internally displaced from their homes.
Syria is just one nation in the region experiencing what seems to be an endless humanitarian disaster – sparked initially by the Arab Spring uprisings that began more than three years ago.
This disaster has fueled the rise of the “Islamic State” (IS), which has brutally exploited the chaos to establish its own nation. Some 12,000 foreign fighters have flocked to the region in support of the fledgling IS. And after acquiring U.S. and Iraqi weapons IS, is becoming stronger and more organized every day.
The Obama administration is reportedly laying the groundwork for a military expansion into Syria from Iraq to pummel the IS. This is the wrong move. And it reflects a much larger failure that American policymakers must address before we can intervene in this regional turmoil: Our once powerful diplomatic muscle is atrophying.http://time.com/3274038/diplomacy-is-the-way-to-beat-the-islamic-state/