Middle Eastern direction, or rather lack thereof

The current lack of a constructive or effective strategy is leading us into a worse scenario than what we have seen so far. Certain banter going on lately seems based completely in a fantasy setting, but I will not simply state an opinion, let us look at a few undeniable facts.
1. We are still set to downgrade and diminish the military across the board due to budget constraints. So, can ANYONE explain if we do NOT have money to fund our military, how in the world we have money to finance Iraqi and Syrian troops?
2. Taking the previous point further, does it make good sense to send money and arms to Iraq in the first place when they lost both to ISIS the first time around? Why not write a blank check to ISIS and just get it over with.
3. Did we not train and equip Iraqi troops while we were in Iraq the first time around? Those troops were pretty beaten up by ISIS and lost large chunks of territory, supplies, and money. Yet for some reason we keep hearing that the "new government" gives us promise of change. I disagree, as the "politicians" will not be the ones facing ISIS troops. Furthermore, policy directives and political personnel matter none to ISIS or their overall goals as they intend to overrun the entire region.
4. John McCain made an interesting point when he addressed whether we would actually engage Assad's air power if they attacked Syrians we armed. Not only could he not get a straight up answer, the answer given was that ISIS was the key opponent and that Assad could be pushed down the line and dealt with later. I concur with McCain here that the Syrian rebels are a hell of alot more interested in Assad's regime than they are ISIS, and just because we arm and train them doesnt mean they are going to stop fighting Assad to take care of our "issues" first.
5. One of my personal quotes I like to repeat is "If you want to see who we will be fighting in two decades, look at who we are patting on the back today." Sadly, not enough people in decision making positions seem to read history books. Arming the Syrian rebels is simply siding with the lesser of two evils, and I can lay two examples from THAT region to support my point...the Taliban and Saddam Hussein..because we built and trained both.
6. We keep hearing about this coalition of Muslim nations that we would "prefer" to deal with the ground issues. Yet, it seems the only ground forces being brought up are the aforementioned Iraqi and Syrian forces, which we will train and equip. Seems that the others in the region are awful unwilling to get committed. Primarily the Saudi's, Turkey, and Egypt are the most capable and equipped to deal with this issue. Yet we are going to beat a dead horse with the overtaxed and demoralized Iraqi's and the Syrian rebels who are already fighting a two front war.
7. Utilizing what has already been said, and mirroring what some top analysts and retired general officers have already stated in the past week or so, the intent of defeating ISIS by utilizing the supposed coalition of Muslim nations while only dropping bombs on our end is doomed to fail before it ever starts. This being the case, sooner or later we WILL be forced into a corner of having to deploy boots on the ground to some capacity. If this seems the inevitable outcome, it would seem to make sense that we do so now BEFORE we indirectly arm ISIS even further through poor decisions and back seat driving.
8. Finally, improper and incomplete conduct of the strategy the first time led us to where we are today. Therefore, considering we are fighting an unrealistic and radical opponent who observes no rules of war and is committing genocide, the ROE and Geneva convention parameters need to be loosened or dropped. The campaign needs to be brutally harsh for the opponent and in the end decisive enough to make the next radical Jihad screaming group think twice before they consider stirring up the pot.

I am speculative that this even gets posted, and if it does, how long it shall remain. I am looking for opinions from those who have also thought along these lines in the last few weeks.