We yawn, GOP rivals bomb in Miami

The main theme running through Thursday night’s Republican debate was unity — of party and country and, ultimately, the whole planet. Under U.S. leadership, of course. As Ohio Gov. John Kasich put it, “A strong America is what the entire world is begging for.”

Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus (I before E except after, oh nevermind) kicked things off with a short talk to the GOP crowd in Miami, Florida, in which he made clear the party would get behind the nominee, “whoever that is, 100 percent.”

In contrast to the previous debate, which devolved into the sort of sniping and name calling befitting of 12-year-olds, this week the Final Four mostly got along. “So far, I cannot believe how civil it’s been up here,” remarked Donald Trump about halfway through the evening. The digs were mostly subtle. Punches were pulled. Even a few compliments were exchanged.

This accidentally made the case that unity can be overrated. As the Republicans tried to minimize their differences on trade and immigration, for instance, a collective yawn went up in living rooms across the country. And the candidates’ sudden pledge to commit thousands of U.S. ground troops to fight ISIS could have done with some dissent.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has long called for more boots on the ground to fight ISIS in the past, but those boots ought to belong to Arab armies from the Middle East with U.S. support, he had said. Now the boot is on the other foot, one that belongs to an American soldier.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said that America needs “utterly defeat ISIS” and “to put whatever ground power is needed to carry it out.” Kasich armchair generaled it thus: “You have to be in the air and you have to be on the ground. And you bring all the force you need. It has got to be ‘shock and awe’ in the military-speak.”

Fishing for disagreement, moderator Hugh Hewitt inquired, “Mr. Trump, more troops?” The outspoken billionaire, who had not been shy about criticizing Republican foreign policy of late, replied, “We really have no choice. We have to knock out ISIS. We have to knock the hell out of them.”

“Knock(ing) the hell out of them” could be consistent with American bombers simply taking their routine anti-ISIS runs up a notch, but no. In his new trying-to-seem-presidential phase, Trump pledged to “listen to the generals” and put 20,000 to 30,000 troops into the fight, or more if necessary.

American hatred of ISIS is bipartisan. It’s unlikely the Republican hopefuls will lose many votes by threatening to put the boots in. Still, there are questions. Republicans have made noises about how we need allies in the region to help in the fight against ISIS, but these are expected to play second fiddle to American forces and American leadership. Why?

If ISIS is a murderous menace — and it is — then isn’t it more of a menace to its much closer Middle Eastern neighbors? Recall some leaders of ISIS were expelled from al-Qaida in the first place for being too hardcore.

ISIS claims all leaders of nearby countries are illegitimate. Its jihadists aim, ultimately, to depose those rulers and bring the people under its form of Islam. Plenty of Middle Eastern Muslim rulers, and citizens, rightly see this as a mortal threat and are trying to do something about it. Isn’t it more their fight than it is ours?

Jeremy Lott is a senior fellow at the American Security Initiative Foundation.