There are growing calls from left and right for "clarity" in the international response to events in Iraq and Syria. One of the latest to join this chorus is Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Defense Secretary who made such a fool of himself over Iraq in 2003. Rumsfeld told the Washington Times the other day:

"If there is one thing that we have seen, it’s that this presidency has been exemplified by not providing the kind of clarity of vision that a leader must provide ..."

It was the neocons' mistaken "clarity of vision" that brought about the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 but they don't seem to have learned much since. What those calling for clarity are really saying is that there ought to be a clear, simple – and preferably quick – solution to the current mess. 

There isn't one. So get over it.

Obama, of course, is not the only one in a quandary. Consider the positions of Iran, Russia and the Assad regime. Having justified his campaign of killing on the basis of fighting terrorism, Assad can scarcely complain about the US-led attacks on ISIS. But allowing these to happen, even if tacitly, highlights his own inability or unwillingness to seriously tackle ISIS and also undermines a key Baathist principle of resisting foreign intervention. Russia, as the chief supporter of Assad outside the Middle East, is similarly bemused – as is Iran, which is struggling to choose between "Death to America" and "Death to ISIS".

The main reason why clarity is impossible is that the conflict surrounding ISIS cannot be divorced from sectarian rivalries elsewhere in the region, from questions about the future of Syria and Iraq, from Kurdish national aspirations, from negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme, the repressive nature of America's Arab allies, etc, etc.. Thus, whatever is done to alleviate one problem now is liable to make another problem worse – either now or in the future.

Take, for instance, the question of arming the Kurds. Peter Tatchell, the British human rights campaigner, has been urging this as an alternative to air strikes (he made a similar argument in the run-up to the 2003 war, incidentally).

"The truth is that if the US and UK are serious about fighting ISIS they should start by aiding the people on the ground who know the region best, have local roots and who are already leading the fight against the jihadist menace – the peshmerga army of the Kurdish regional government in Iraq and guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and allied movements in Syria. This aid could include training, weapons, military intelligence, food and medical equipment. With extra assistance and supplies, they could be a powerful, effective counter-force to ISIS. The aim would be to empower them to liberate themselves."

In the context of rolling back ISIS the Kurds obviously have an important part to play – but only up to a point. "Empowering" them militarily to fight ISIS, if not done carefully, could also empower them to break away from the rest of Iraq at a later date and sow the seeds for a future war.

This is one example of the discrepancy between short-term and long-term needs, and how the means used to achieve short-term goals can make long-term goals more difficult to achieve. It is well illustrated by Obama's choice of allies in the current battle with ISIS. Writing in the Financial Times, Edward Luce says:

"His Middle East coalition comprises five autocracies, four of which are monarchies. To one degree or another, each represses dissent. Each, indirectly or inadvertently, has helped spawn groups such as Isis, Khorasan, Jabhat al-Nusra and, of course, al-Qaeda. Each will reap longer-term profit from assisting the US in its hour of emergency. Things have worked this way in the Middle East for decades. At a moment like this, it would be naive to expect Mr Obama to change that.

"At the heart of this Faustian pact is Saudi Arabia. Americans have not forgotten that 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11 2001 were Saudi citizens. Nor have they forgotten the mistaken 2003 US pivot to Iraq. Today, much like the day the Twin Towers fell, the most direct global threat to the US comes from Islamist terrorism – the Sunni variety, to be precise. None of the terrorist plots in the US and Europe since 9/11 have been devised by Shia groups. Yet the one ally that is off-limits to Mr Obama is Iran – Saudi Arabia’s Shia counterpart and its greatest foe.

"Given his constraints, Mr Obama has cobbled together the best alliance of expediency he can find. But his mission targets a symptom rather than the causes of Salafi extremism."

Ultimately, as I have argued in previous blog posts (here and here), the problem – not just of Salafi extremism but religious authoritarianism in general – will have to be addressed. But again, in their effort to combat the ISIS kind of religious authoritarianism by joining forces with the Saudi kind, politicians are making that more difficult. One result, as The Economist noted, is that many of them are turning into amateur theologians with half-baked opinions about what constitutes "true" Islam.