Derb writes:
The fortunes of Kurds and Yazidis are of no importance to the U.S.A. It’s nothing to us whether Iraq remains one nation or splits into three. Syria, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan: these trash can nations will never have any constitutional government, nor any economic, military, or cultural significance. Leave them alone, or at the mercy of their neighbors, to work out their own destinies. They are nothing to us.
Likewise with West Africa. The entire effect on the U.S.A. of a total ban on contacts with Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone would be a rise in the price of chocolate—not exactly an existential threat.