No Change in Strategy
Two days ago, on the thirteenth anniversary of September 11,
President Obama gave a speech that should have taken no one by surprise. The
plan he described is the implementation of the same foreign policy the U.S. has
had since 2009 – the use of airstrikes and allies to deal with designated
threats while minimizing the involvement of American ground troops. It’s the
same strategy used in Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. It’s the same strategy that
led to the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden.
As explained in this speech, the plan is straightforward:
strike the horrific terrorist group ISIS from the air, both in Iraq and in Syria; promote an inclusive
government for Iraq; bring in an organized coalition of allies, with a focus on
Arab states; and support the moderate Syrian rebels of the Free Syrian Army
(FSA) against Assad.
There are flaws with this plan – especially regarding the
expansion of airstrikes into Syria. The U.S. would need to communicate with the
FSA to ensure that targets are correctly identified – otherwise there would be
a risk of striking the FSA by accident. But communicating with the FSA about targets
would make it possible for the FSA to deliberately misidentify Syrian
government forces as ISIS. A U.S. airstrike against Assad could provoke a
response that the U.S. would deliberately respond too, drawing the U.S. into
the war and giving the FSA the air support they’ve wanted since 2011.
| The Mahdi Army, a Shia militia that fought against U.S. troops during the Iraq War, fires on ISIS. Photo: Reuters/Ahmed Jadallah |
Of course, a more limited response would be politically
difficult given the hawkish nature of American political discourse. The U.S. is
the only country that would be realistically capable of invading almost
anywhere on the planet, and the use of that capability can be excruciatingly
tempting.
In this case, putting ground troops on the front lines is not
a reasonable option. ISIS would love to be seen as a group actively fighting
against the U.S. Being able to directly attack American troops would probably
assist ISIS’ recruitment efforts and increase, not decrease, their legitimacy
in the region.
Neither Islamic nor a State
Obama described ISIS – which prefers to call itself the “Islamic
State” – as “neither Islamic, nor a state.” Groups and even countries calling
themselves things they aren’t isn’t a new practice. Voltaire once described the
Holy Roman Empire as “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” These days, I
can’t imagine anyone believing that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
is democratic, a republic, belongs to its people, or is all of Korea simply
because it claims to be.
With the American public leaning towards war, the difference
between ISIS and Islam is important to point out. No group of people since
al-Qaeda has been more widely denounced by Muslim scholars and communities
around the world. ISIS is so far from the Islamic mainstream that conspiracy
theories have emerged suggesting that it’s a proxy created by the U.S. to
attack Muslims.
Regard the claim to statehood: it's no more a state than the average drug cartel
Transcript of the speech: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/full-text-of-president-obamas-speech-outlining-strategy-to-defeat-islamic-state/2014/09/10/af69dec8-3943-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html
Watch it here: http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000003107090/obama-addresses-the-nation-about-isis.html
