Journal 5 International Involvement

This article gave information describing international relationships, which is what I have been looking for throughout my research. The article gave a brief summary of 5 different problems going on worldwide and talked about what countries are involved. Syria, Egypt, Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, and the African Islamists were the main focus of this article. I enjoyed reading this article because every section gave a brief background and then I was informed about the countries involved in trying to resolve that particular issue. This article also provided a timeline at the end that briefly described international events from March 2012 up until May 2014. Although this article was written before the ISIS really started to cause problems in Iraq and Syria, I was able to get an idea of how different countries get involved with particular issues.

This article was helpful in that I was able to see international involvement pertaining to certain issues; however, there was no direct quotes or opposing views given in this article. This article mainly stated what individual countries were doing to help issues, along with the involvement of European Union, United Nations, and United States. I can use this information in my paper by stating a fact and then backing that fact up with a US military quote from my previous article. For example, Rouhani, Iran’s president, declared both before and after the election that his top priority was to reach a settlement with the so-called P5+1 bloc — China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran says it wants to enrich uranium only to generate energy. But many Western governments want to stop the enrichment program altogether, fearing Iran intends eventually to manufacture nuclear weapons, which Iranian leaders deny. I can use this information to show that many countries have come together to stop a potential nuclear weapon program showing hope for countries to come together and stop the ISIS. I can use many other facts to help prove my argument that the US should be involved in stopping the ISIS, especially showing how my view has gone from one end to the opposite through this research process.

One statement particularly stood out to me: After the U.K. Parliament voted 285-272 on Aug. 29 against military intervention, France and the United States were alone in considering a strike against Assad’s forces. At the last minute, however, Russia, in concert with the United States, successfully intervened to avoid a conflict by persuading Assad to give up all of his chemical weapons. By October international inspectors, acting under a U.N. mandate, had arrived in Syria and made rapid progress toward the mutually agreed goal of destroying Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile by mid-2014. Not only does this deal directly with my topic, but it shows supporting facts that several countries are coming together to partake in this international crisis. I now know that along with the United States, Russia and the UN are beginning to take action, which could be a preview to more countries stepping in. This statement also helps my argument because it talks about big power house countries stepping in, unlike the previous article that talked about small Middle Eastern countries trying to resolve the crisis which is almost laughable. Another issue that arises is the disagreements between the Sunni and Shiite Muslim groups. This is the bases for the war currently going on in Syria, along with a main theme the ISIS is currently surfacing. With the ISIS being a Sunni terrorist group, large problems arise in the Middle East as this area is divided between the two groups and neither of them wants to come to a fair agreement in regards to power. I am not going to focus on this underlying issue, but it important when discussing international involvement as some of these countries are going to side with whoever shares the same religious beliefs.

After writing these 6 journal entries, I need to do a little more research on international involvement related specifically to the ISIS. I realize that little information has been documented since this issue is currently taking place, so I am going to have to use different international terrorist circumstances to make connections. I also need to find a few more scholarly articles because a few of my first articles were not helpful for my specific part of this topic which has been narrowed down to international involvement. Overall, I think I am on a good track to write my first draft but I need to find more supporting facts and also find a few opposing quotes that will strengthen my side of the argument as I can defend my view.