James Foley's assassination at the hands of the Islamic State was barbaric, inhuman and politically motivated.

Terrorism has many pragmatic benefits as a tool in warfare, not least of which is to provoke one's enemies into a certain course of action. Putting aside the moral qualms surrounding revenge -- the Bible's take on it is "Do not repay anyone evil for evil," Romans 12:17 -- the rational reaction to provocation must also be measured.

IS seems to be overplaying its hand, murdering one American civilian and holding another, Steven Sotloff, hostage and resting his life on President Obama's "next decision." Either IS expects the United States to cave to extortion -- historically not a good bet to place -- or IS wants to lure the United States further into the conflict.

Neither option is palatable because both allow IS to set the agenda.

The U.S. has ample experience in responding to violence with violence, on many occasions, it could be argued, justifiably so. However, the consequences to American life of these righteous missions have not always been the intended ones. Would James Foley be alive today had 9/11 not detonated two trillion-dollar wars?

While the above question is unfair in that it oversimplifies geopolitical circumstances and a brutal crime's causality, it focuses attention on the long-term consequences of righteous rage.

The current political and military situation in Iraq certainly calls for American aid and intervention. The re-capture of the strategic Mosul Dam by government forces was an important victory for stability and moderation in the entire Middle East. Sadly, the American air strikes that aided Kurdish and Iraqi forces in that battle may well have motivated Foley's murder.

Iraq has just undergone its first peaceful transfer of power in decades with the appointment of Haider Al-Abadi as prime minister. The United States has a responsibility to support Abadi's government, as long as it remains a positive influence on its nation and the region as a whole.

U.S. support will prove useful to Abadi so long as it is measured and strategic. An escalation of violence attributed to U.S. actions can only destabilize the region and further alienate local groups already suspicious of America and its allies.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West, no doubt echoing the views of many, proposed a visceral U.S. reaction: "It's very simple, we need to destroy ISIS."

From any reasonable Western viewpoint, it's doubtful that IS as a political entity will have a space in a peaceful and potentially democratic Middle East. However, to proclaim the destruction of an entity that controls such a large swath of territory and its inhabitants can only lead to further bloodshed.

The only reasonable option is to continue to intervene in the Iraqi conflict in whatever capacity levelheaded policymakers decide is best for the long-term stability of the region. To alter U.S. military plans because of a brutish, cowardly and inhuman action would be to empower its perpetrators on a global scale.

James Foley should be remembered for his work and his undying impulse to bring the truth to the public. To shed blood in his name would not accomplish that. What may help is to ask whether past U.S. retaliation made the Middle East, or the United States, better places.

With an answer to that question, an appropriate strategy to deal with Foley's murderers can be devised. With any luck, that strategy will succeed in improving lives in the country where Foley was born and in the region where he found his calling and, ultimately, his death.

Editor's note: The above article represents the opinion of its author and should not be construed to reflect the opinion of United Press International.

Extremists told family Foley would be killed: employer
Washington (AFP) Aug 20, 2014 - Jihadists told the family of American journalist James Foley this month that he would be executed, one of the media outlets he worked for said Wednesday, after he was beheaded.

Philip Balboni, chief executive of news site GlobalPost, to which Foley contributed while covering the war in Libya and then Syria before his abduction there in 2012, said the journalist's captors had been in touch in the weeks before his murder.

"We've had communication with the captors, and there was at one time a receptivity to a negotiation that would lead to a release," Balboni told MSNBC television.

"It's impossible to say because the kidnappers ceased to communicate with us, with the family."

Balboni then stated that, after the beginning of US air strikes in Iraq -- the first since the end of the Iraq war -- the Islamic State warned the Foleys that their son would be killed.

"We have not released this, but there was one communication after the bombing began that went to the family that stated that Jim would be executed," he said.

"We hoped and prayed that it would not and we did everything we could ourselves to communicate back to them that Jim was just an innocent journalist who loved the Syrian people, who understood Islam and only wanted to tell the story of the Syrian people."

Asked if he believed the bombing campaign was connected to Foley's murder, Balboni said: "the onset of the bombing, which was done for very good and sufficient reason by our government, perhaps was the thing that sealed Jim's fate."

But he stressed that the Foley family does not blame their son's death on President Barack Obama's decision to launch air strikes.

In early August the United States began bombing IS forces in northern Iraq in a bid to prevent a feared genocide as jihadists closed in on thousands of members of Iraq's Yazidi minority.

Later US air raids were conducted in support of Iraqi forces near Mosul, where extremists were battling for control of a major dam.

GlobalPost has led the two-year effort to find and free Foley. Balboni said several other Westerners were taken hostage in Syria and elsewhere, and that he was "virtually certain" that ransoms were paid to gain their freedom.

"We are so deeply sorry that we couldn't bring Jim home safely," he said.

Balboni and the family were now focusing on the remaining hostages, including an American which IS has threatened to kill unless Obama calls off the air strikes.

"We know what they've done, and we have to believe that they're more than capable of doing this again."