Boots on the ground against ISIS should come with taxes, the draft

political analysis by Dr. Eric Baker

Editor’s note: This commentary is part of a collaboration between the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith and Talk Business & Politics. Dr. Eric Baker joined the UAFS faculty in 2008 and has a doctorate in political science from the University of Florida. Baker previously taught at the University of Richmond in Virginia and East Carolina University in North Carolina.

Opinions, commentary and other essays posted in this space are wholly the view of the author(s). They may not represent the opinion of the owners of Talk Business & Politics or the administration of the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith.

––––––––

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris, the usual critics of the Obama administration were saying that not doing enough to deal with the Islamic State (IS). Some of those critics are running for the Republican nomination for president.

U.S. Sen. Mark Rubio, R-Fla., said, “When I am president, what I will do to defeat ISIL is very simple: whatever it takes.” This would include sending ground troops back to the region.

Another presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said something similar. On the campaign trail he stated that President Obama was in denial about IS. Going further he said: “Give me the options to carry this out. I wouldn’t say, ‘no civilian causalities’ although no one in America would ever want that. I wouldn’t say, ‘We can’t have combat troops on the ground,’ I wouldn’t put restrictions that would make it impossible for us to be successful because that’s what our president has done.”

Very strong words for Gov. Bush. Of course both of the candidates forget that the president campaigned on and won two elections on the promise he would withdraw American troops from Iraq, because Americans were sick of the conflict. He fulfilled that promise. That ISIS erupted into the cancer it is was not a product of us leaving the region; IS was there all along.

But if they believe American troops are necessary to defeat IS, they must be willing to say how they would do it. Their bluff must be called.

As suggested by my colleague Dan Breitenberg, they must be asked how they would pay for a return to Iraq. My suggestion for the candidates: raise taxes. Taxes must be raised to pay for the war upfront. No more supplementary spending bills that camouflage the real cost of war and drive up the nation’s debt. A tax on oil and its products would be good, because it was oil that was largely the reason we invaded Iraq any way.

Professor Breitenberg also suggested they be asked if they would be willing to reinstate the draft. The draft was ended in the early 1970s because of the unpopularity of the Vietnam War. Reinstatement wouldn’t be popular, either, but it would be fair. Our voluntary force, as wonderful as they are, is stretched thin, with multiple and long deployments common.

Breitenberg was subject to the draft. I was not and wouldn’t be subject in case of reinstatement because of my age. Neither of us support bringing back the draft. I am not advocating sending more troops to the region to combat IS, because that would be what IS wants and we’d be sucked into another grinding insurgency as it faded into the population.

But if Republican candidates such as Bush and Rubio want more troops to fight in that God-forsaken region, they should be forced to say precisely how far they would truly go.