Does ISIS only exist because the USA and (its poodle) the UK started an illegal war and destabilized the Middle East?
I would disagree about the legality of the invasion: Hans Blix told the Bush Administration everything they would find in Iraq where weapons of mass destruction were concerned. The US invaded anyway. Blix was vindicated. But the Iraq War was never about WMDs; it was about massive contracts being issued to energy resource companies and military contractors. But that does not get us directly to the self-titled Islamic State's formation. Instead, it was the pinnacle of stupidity that the US, in the aftermath of invasion, pre-empted plans that were being carried-out by Jay Garner to lead coalition efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to Iraqis and commence the rebuilding process. Garner has unabashedly stated that the plan was to use Iraqi soldiers to rebuild the country because they understood command and control, they had vehicles, and they had a knowledge not only of the language but also of the country itself and what problems may be encounter. When Paul Bremer took over the reconstruction effort, he disbanded the military and barred all Ba'ath Party members from continuing in the new Iraqi government. This took the stupidity of the invasion to a whole new level: now there were hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that had no share in shaping Iraq's future as part of its legitimate governance. There is no wondering where all of the manpower and weaponry came from to support various faction and insurgent groups. But it was with the formation of the self-titled Islamic State that these disenfranchised Iraqis coalesced around a more potent leadership. Consequently, the rise of the self-titled Islamic State was not a direct result of the invasion of Iraq -- it was the invasion combined with the conscious stupidity to scrap a workable plan for reconstruction and rehabilitation. In short, it greatly compounded the worst foreign policy decision in US history by making it one of the two longest wars in US history.
Should the US accept Syrian refugees?
Yes, absolutely. This is the worst humanitarian crisis since WWII. Of course we must have the toughest screening process possible, but I worry that calls to end or pause our refugee resettlement program are misguided. Refugees are currently subject to the absolute highest level of security checks of any category of traveler coming to the U.S. - with special criteria in place for those coming from Syria on top of the normal procedures. Getting admitted as a refugee generally takes more than a year and a half and involves signoff from numerous agencies including the National Counterterrorism Center, the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security, the State Department and the Department of Defense. It’s not easy to come into our country as a refugee, at all. But the notion of ‘no Syrian can ever come here’ is antithetical to our values – especially when the innocent civilians and families seeking refuge in our country are fleeing the very violence and terror we saw in France and Lebanon that they experience every day in Syria