Economic problem-solving and solution development

¶ … Stop ISIS

The best way to stop ISIS is to cut off their funding. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey are known to be doing business with ISIS's oil trade. Therefore, one economic solution to the problem of ISIS and their terror network throughout the world is to sanction countries that do business with the terrorist group. Even if these countries are our allies, the stopping of the bombings and mass killings that this group is responsible for is far more important than the geopolitical reasons that we have to be allies with these nations. Economic sanctions have, in fact, worked in the past. We have used them against Iran and Russia. It brought both to the negotiating table in recent years. We worked with Iran over a nuclear deal and essentially received everything we wanted in terms of assurance that nonproliferation would remain in place. Iran also received what it wanted, which was the lifting of sanctions and trade embargoes, and as a result it could get back to business, shipping oil, trading with countries like Russia, etc. True, the deal with Iran did not make everyone happy. Our other ally Israel was very unhappy with the deal because they view Iran as an existential threat; however, with the way the deal was worked there is no way Iran could develop nuclear weapons without our knowing it and thus violating the treaty.

With Russia, the result was the same. Russia is still viewed skeptically in the West, but the sanctions that the West has leveled against the country have devastated it in economic terms. Russia, for instance, cannot survive with oil prices so low and with trade to Europe cut off. Thus, it is in its best interest that it come to the negotiating table with the U.S. Economic sanctions work.

The problem with ISIS is that too many countries are willing to do business with the group and exploit their situation for their own gain. Saudi Arabia and Turkey, for instance, both seek to gain from ISIS being in the Middle East and the group's war on Syria. Saudi Arabia wants Assad overthrown so that it can make a pipeline deal with a newly installed dictator; the current one has said no to a Saudi-Turkey pipeline. Turkey also wants to work with ISIS because it can purchase cheap oil from the terrorist group and sell it to Israel and other nations on the black market. Russia has attempted to smash this oil ring by bombing ISIS oil targets, but the U.S. has taken issue with this, as it is offensive to both of its allies -- Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The U.S. is thus in a tricky geopolitical aim; but it is shooting itself in the foot in terms of economic opportunity-cost. The opportunity to defeat ISIS for good is there for the taking; the cost of not defeating them is high: their terror networks will survive and grow and continued to be funded by American allies. Thus, the U.S. should weigh the economic opportunity-cost very carefully. It may hurt geopolitical relations in the short-term (Saudi Arabia, after all, has threatened to dump trillions off U.S. bonds on the market if the U.S. does anything that makes Saudi Arabia look bad -- like allow Congress to open up the "28 pages" of the 9/11 Commission's Report) (Durden).