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Throughout this presidential election the candidates have either spoke how they would bomb ISIS into oblivion; how they didn’t vote for the war in Iraq; or tried justifying away why they voted for the war, but no one has articulated a grand strategy for the Middle East.

No matter who occupies the White House in 2017, the president will have to deal with the Middle East, just like every president since Franklin Roosevelt.  Now whatever the candidates state on the campaign trail will mean nothing, and will fall to the harsh reality of the complexities of the Middle East come January 2017!

In the entire debate on how to defeat ISIS it’s always about how to annihilate them with the militarily, or ‘we need to defeat them’ without ever identifying all the other players in the region, their complex tensions, and the diverse prospects which lie at the heart of the conflict.

No matter what course of action the candidates take, a vast majority of the ISIS fighters will eventually survive to fight another day, and then other violent Islamic extremist groups will fill the vacuum; such as the Al Nusra or Al Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Quoting two of the most famous military strategists in history; Sun Tzu stated that, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,” and Clausewitz stated, “War is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means.”

The question I have often mentioned many times before is, what is the grand strategy of the United States for the Middle East region?

So far the presidential candidates have only given vague answers on how they would defeat ISIS, and no one has said what replaces ISIS inside Syria? This one question also feeds into the larger question that I just stated of what is the grand strategy for the Middle East?

Leaving the Middle East is not a solution, as other regional powers are now beginning to fill the vacuum left by the U.S., such as Russia and Iran, who, many of the Sunni Arab nations we will need in order to defeat ISIS, view as their greatest threat.

These same Sunni Arab nations are watching in horror as Iran, buffeted by the releasing of billions of dollars of frozen assets and lifting of economic sanctions, has in recent months test fired ballistic missiles with little or no repercussions by the United States. This lack of resolve by the U.S., and the further disengagement, signals to the region the continued assentation of Iran as dominate regional power.

In Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in “The Atlantic’” titled, “The Obama Doctrine” he writes, for Obama, Asia represents the future. Africa and Latin America, in his view, deserve far more U.S. attention than they receive. Europe, about which he is unromantic, is a source of global stability that requires, to his occasional annoyance, American hand-holding. And the Middle East is a region to be avoided—one that, thanks to America’s energy revolution, will soon be of negligible relevance to the U.S. economy”.

This view by the president has already radically changed the Middle East, with regional powers shaping the landscape to fit their strategic interests, thus making the region more unstable then before.

The candidates are falling into the same strategic trap as President Obama, by not understanding the complexities of the region, and thinking they have the only answers. The region is complex and multi-dimensional, but still requires leadership that only the United States can provide.

Not every issue requires a military solution, but abdicating U.S. leadership will force the U.S. into a decision the nation did not otherwise want to make. The region needs a complex grand strategy, but unfortunately neither of the candidates have articulated anything beyond a tactical and operational strategy.

The focus has been on defeating ISIS, but missing again is the global strategy for the Middle East region.

Nobody has mentioned in all the rhetoric – what comes after ISIS?

Military strategist Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies wrote, “The problem in Iraq — and in Syria, Libya, and Yemen — is that no war that simply ensures the temporary survival of a failed state can have a successful end, particularly when that failed state is a product of politics, deep internal divisions, failed governances, poor economic development, and massive pressure for a population that has grown fivefold since 1950.”

The candidates have failed to articulate how they would deal with the dysfunctional Iraqi government, with all of its sectarian infighting and marginalized Sunni and Kurdish populations.

Even if the U.S. defeated ISIS it will not bring stability to Syria, so how would any of the candidates deal with the government of Syrian President Bashar Hafez al-Assad, who is heavily backed by Russia and Iran.

Beyond what is transpiring in Syria and Iraq, one cannot forget about the failed states of Yemen and Libya.  How would the next president deal with the mess associated with these two countries?

How would the United States engage with the Sunni’s in the region after having been marginalized by the Obama administration in favor of Iran?

Finally, how will the next president deal with the other regional powers such as Turkey, Russia, and Iran, when each have their own strategic interests that do not coincide with the United States?

As I’ve stated many times before, the Middle East is a complex and multi-dimensional region and needs a multi-pronged approached, but so far all we are getting from the candidates is a political strategy which plays to the U.S. domestic audience.

If we don’t press the candidates now, they will be pressed by the Middle East later to the detriment of the United States; it will be very painful to us!