President Obama’s ISIS Strategy Isn’t Reality Based

President Obama’s response to ISIS is another example of how our ruling class couples their illusions with whatever they find it convenient to do.

Angelo Codevilla, The Fedralist

President Obama’s promise “to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL” may or may not end up causing problems for the Islamic State. Surely however, it further degraded our security by further engaging us in the combination of fantasy and half measures that has earned America a reputation for un-seriousness and opened hunting season on Americans everywhere.

Obama degrades America by dwelling in a politically convenient fantasy world. In his September 10 2014 prime-time speech, Obama claimed to have made America safer by combining the withdrawal of troops from abroad with the killing of Osama bin Laden and “taking out terrorists who threaten us” in places like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Obama pledged to deal with ISIL in the same successful way.

In Obama’s fantasy, ISIL is neither Islamic nor a state. But distinguishing ISIL’s doctrine from the orthodox Wahabism preached daily in Mecca and Minneapolis, and that from the Koran, is hardly possible for scholars never mind for religiously illiterate politicians. In fact, some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential Muslims think enough of ISIL’s Islamic credentials to give it countless millions of dollars as a faith-offering, thousands upon thousands of young Muslims from around the world, including the USA rush to fight and die for it, the Muslim governments of Qatar and Turkey, respectively, continue to buy and transit supplies for it, while the Islamic world’s leading intellectual authorities have not critiqued its Islamic credentials.

De facto, ISIL is a state because it controls territory larger than that of a plurality of the UN’s members, and because the people it rules prefer it to their former rulers. They do so because ISIL shares the people’s religious sect (Sunni Islam) while the leaders of the former Syria and Iraq are Alewis or Shia. ISIL conquered its territory with the help of the locals.  In Iraq, the local Sunnis helped ISIL chase away the Iraqi army, and the Kurds too, using arms given them by the US government as part of “the surge.”

But in Obama’s fantasy, as expressed by Sandy Berger, Clinton’s former national security adviser whose advice Obama solicited, our confrontation with ISIL “can’t turn into a U.S versus Sunni battle.” “It has to be us helping the Sunnis battle the Sunni extremists.” It has to be that, regardless of whether the Sunnis who live under ISIL regard their rulers as extremists or not. The locals have to look at things the way we do. They just damn well have to.

More than that, the folks in the region have to believe in and fight for entities called “Iraq” and “Syria,” to which heretofore they have shown scarce allegiance but in which Obama, like the Bushes and Clinton before him, professes to believe deeply. In his speech, he told the world that he had helped fix Iraq by brokering the new, “inclusive” Iraqi government sworn in on September 8. By supporting its efforts “to address the legitimate grievances and needs of all Iraqis”- read, the Sunnis – that government will “drive a wedge between ISIL and Sunnis.” Thus, “The Iraqi Government is taking the fight to ISIL, and will ultimately be the one to defeat it in Iraq.” Inclusiveness will do the trick, for Obama just as it did for Bush. This time, for sure.

If the hard men who now run the ISIL military, who had been Saddam Hussein’s security cadre, who marched against an Iraqi army flush with top-of-the line US arms confident that Iraqi soldiers would hand them over; if the Sunni Islamist agitators whom the American occupation of Iraq had imprisoned for shooting Americans and who now lead an ISIL Caliphate that draws countless recruits aching to behead Americans; if such people believed Obama’s speech, if they shared the Obama-Sandy Berger thesis, they would be quaking in their boots. Odds are they listened to Obama’s speech with glee.

They heard Obama promise to reduce ISIL’s revenue “from oil and assets it has plundered” and to disrupt “the flow of external donations to the group.” They know, just as any well-informed person anywhere knows, that the US government has the capacity to do just that. But they also know what Obama would have to do to accomplish it – namely institute some kind of secondary sanctions on countries (and there are a lot of them) that traffic in oil sold by ISIL – and that Obama does not have the slightest intention of upsetting these countries or the domestic US interests that deal with them. As for cutting off the external donations, the hard men of ISIL can use their financial account books as comfort-pillows, confident that Obama – and John McCain, Qatar’s favorite senator – will bring zero significant pressure on any Gulf rulers to jail their cousins who fund ISIL.

The secular and religious men of ISIL did not hear a peep from Obama about how the pipeline of food and fuel and medicine through Turkey by which ISIL survives is going to be shut down. That is because it isn’t going to be shut down and ISIL, along with its host population, will continue to eat, drink, and be well.

They heard Obama promise to strike from the air to “degrade ISIL’s leadership, logistical and operational capability, and deny it sanctuary and resources to plan, prepare and execute attack.” They know that America has an air force that could do that. Heck, they know that Saudi Arabia and Jordan together have over 400 modern fighter-bombers that, even without American attack aircraft but only with American air controllers, these could starve and kill them in an intensive campaign over a couple of months. But Obama told them that all they need worry about is the sort of thing that America has mustered against its enemies in recent years. Massive campaigns aimed at swift victory are now politically incorrect in Washington.

Obama promised to limit “ISIL’s ability to extort local populations; stemming ISIL’s gains from kidnapping for ransom.” That would be serious. But the men of ISIL can discount the threat because executing it would take physically pushing ISIL rulers out with a substantial ground force. Obama made it clear that the U.S. will not supply such a force. (Good thing too, because a US ground invasion would likely repeat the disastrous Iraq occupation policy). The Kurds fight magnificently. But they have learned to do so exclusively for Kurdistan. The Iraqi army does not, and will not, exist. Iraq has plenty of ferocious Shia militias – death squads – eager to take the equivalent of Sunni scalps. But all know that Obama will do his best to shield ISIL from the Shia. The Saudis demand it.

Again and again, Obama degraded the English language by describing his fantasy as “strategy,” as in: “our strategy will be underpinned by a strong coalition of regional and international partners who are willing to commit resources and will to this long-term endeavor.” This usage is akin to: “our strategy is to make a ham sandwich, contingent on somebody providing the bread and someone else the ham,” or “the mouse’s strategy for dealing with the cat is to place a bell around its neck.”

But Obama gave no hint as to how “regional and international partners” would be persuaded to do whatever it takes to “degrade and destroy” ISIL – nor even of what activity and what level thereof would be required to do that – any more than how any mouse might go about belling a cat.

The American people watched videos of men like ourselves being beheaded by Muslim thugs with a knife who now dispose of a state, and who are drawing unto themselves God-knows-how many would-be beheaders of Americans. The American people reasonably demanded a real campaign to destroy ISIL. What Obama delivered was yet more fantasy.

Alas, our ruling class couples their illusions with whatever they find it convenient to do, and call it “strategy.” Thereby do they advertise their impotence.

Angelo M. Codevilla is a fellow of the Claremont Institute, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University and the author of To Make And Keep Peace, Hoover Institution Press, 2014.
September 14, 2014 | 284 Comments »

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50 Comments / 284 Comments

  1. @ Ted Belman:

    “The central figure in all this is, as it has always been, YAMIT. Thru the years, lots of people have left the site over disputes with him. (I know this for a fact because — as you’ll recall — some of them have in the past, from time to time, asked you to forward their emails to me.)

    When he finds their presence inconvenient, he pressures them to leave. If they are too strong for that, he solicits support from other posters for his ’cause,’ and gives his OWN support in return.

    Ross and others draw sustenance from this process, sometimes sufficiently so to take the lead in the assault (under any of a number of by-now standard guises), so as to enable Yamit to fade momentarily into the background and thus keep from drawing attention to himself and the reality that he is the central figure in it all.”

    “Always looking to place the blame for your own faults and inadequacies on others. ”

    See what I mean? It was bound to smoke him out in the end.

    “This from a paranoid who claims never to be wrong about anything he says in his comments.”

    No, never said (or even intimated) that; not about ‘anything’ I say. There are LOTS of areas where I’m rarely certain about a matter. Only in re certain, narrowly focused kinds of things that I say do I presume to be reliably correct: specifically those things relating to the emotional vectors that go into the crippling effects of trauma. And it is YOU who are the paranoiac here; most definitely. (I am easily the least paranoid person on this site.)

    “Did you always run home to mama when the boys picked on you or the girls?”

    LMSS. Other kids didn’t pick on me; usually after an opening gambit, they knew better than to try.

    When I had to defend myself, it was often against MOM, who occasionally assumed (because of traumata in her OWN childhood, a Jew growing up in the Depression) that I was the ‘culprit.’

    — I wasn’t, but (like Ted) she was slow at getting the picture in focus. So I had to acquire the patience to help her do that. It taught me to get really good at spotting phonies, fakes & frauds and showing what they’re made of.

  3. From The Israel Project

    The Senate late Thursday unanimously passed bipartisan legislation establishing Israel as a “major strategic partner” of the United States, establishing a basis for expanded cooperation across areas as diverse as security, energy, and trade. The bill had been authored by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) and had gained 81 co-sponsors before it went to the floor. The House had already passed parallel legislation in March, and the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC called on Congress “to move quickly to reconcile the two versions of the legislation and send it to the President for his signature.” Broad aspects of the bill will see Israel’s trade status upgraded and new mechanisms created to facilitate technological cooperation in corporate and academic contexts. The Times of Israel specifically focused on aspects of the legislation that will – per the outlet’s description – increase “the frequency and detail of US government reporting on Israel’s qualitative military edge” and “expand the authority for forward-deployed US weapons stockpiles in Israel.” The value of those stockpiles, which the Israelis have tapped into during their recent wars with Hamas, will now be increased by $200 million to a total of $1.8 billion. The Times of Israel also picked out provisions of the bill requiring the president to “study the feasibility of expanding US-Israel cooperation on cyber security.” A recently leaked top-secret memo detailed previously unknown dimensions of US-Israeli intelligence cooperation, revealing that Washington and Jerusalem coordinate on cyber issues to an unprecedented degree. There are also provisions in the legislation to broaden energy cooperation, just a few weeks after the Houston Chronicle reported on broad efforts being made to establish links between Israel and Texas-based energy companies on issues ranging from regulatory advice to resource co-production. The vote itself came less than a month after a bipartisan Congressional delegation visited Israel to among other things push back against swirling reports of strain between Washington and Jerusalem. American support for Israel and sympathy for Israel remain near all time highs, and Congressional legislation expressing Washington’s backing for the Jewish state routinely cruises through the Senate without dissent. Scholar and journalist Walter Russell Mead, the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College, has described public American support for Israel as “one of the most potent political forces in U.S. foreign policy.”

  8. dweller Said:

    Then you haven’t been paying attention, phoenix (and let’s be clear, boychik: you’ve played a part in the Yamit-support phenomenon I described).

    I knew it!!!! Phoenix was in on the caper too!
    yamit82 Said:

    Don’t forget Devolin several times for extended periods.

    Devolins part of the gang
    the phoenix Said:

    Does the name “dionissis mitropoulos” ring a bell?

    they’re all against me!
    honeybee Said:

    No Honey cake for either one.

    The real leader of the conspiracy!!!!

  9. dweller Said:

    The central figure in all this is, as it has always been, YAMIT.

    I knew it!!!!!! 😛 😛 😛

    <
    dweller Said:

    Ross and others draw sustenance from this process, sometimes sufficiently so to take the lead in the assault (under any of a number of by-now standard guises), so as to enable Yamit to fade momentarily into the background and thus keep from drawing attention to himself and the reality that he is the central figure in it all.

    That’s ONE thing in all this which has NEVER changed.

    who stole the strawberries:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlV3oQ3pLA0

  12. @ yamit82:

    “The central figure in all this is, as it has always been, YAMIT. Thru the years, lots of people have left the site over disputes with him. (I know this for a fact because — as you’ll recall — some of them have in the past, from time to time, asked you to forward their emails to me.)”

    “I am not so sure about that…”

    Then you haven’t been paying attention, phoenix (and let’s be clear, boychik: you’ve played a part in the Yamit-support phenomenon I described).

    What’s more, the pattern was WELL established long before you showed up.

    “Does the name ‘dionissis mitropoulos’ ring a bell?”

    Indeed it does; I never forget a name. What about it?

    “And the lengthy posts whereby he explained WHY he is leaving the forum and because of WHOM?”

    Yes, I recall those parting shots quite well. If you think you see a parallel, however, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

    — I not only NEVER pressured him (or anybody else) to leave, but I also URGED him, in the strongest of terms, to stay. His leaving was (and remains) ENTIRELY his own doing.

    “Don’t forget Devolin several times for extended periods.”

    Again, the attempted parallel falls flat on its keister.

    I never pressured Michael to leave — on any occasion. Quite the contrary, in fact, I — many, many times — explicitly wished him well (and have never ceased to do so) and urged him to stay. If you’ve the time & inclination to explore the archives, they will bear me out, I quite assure you.

  17. @ dweller:

    Always looking to place the blame for your own faults and inadequacies on others. This from a paranoid who claims never to be wrong about anything he says in his comments.

    Did you always run home to mama when the boys picked on you or the girls? If you check your own archival comments you will see that my arguments with you were largely unrelated to the criticisms of you by others.

    You remind me of one who instigates contovery and then crys foul when responded to in kind. Pathetic performance you have demonstrated in your scurrilous attempts to make me the heavy for 4, 5 or six regular posters putting you in your long overdue place.

    I must say in all truth they are better at it than I am, less emotional, but thoroughly and consistently factual.

    Grow up!!

  21. honeybee Said:

    You do not end a sentence with either a preposition or a proposition !!!!!! Ya hear.

    I can understand “preposition”, I think, but why not “a proposition”?

  23. The central figure in all this is, as it has always been, YAMIT. Thru the years, lots of people have left the site over disputes with him. (I know this for a fact because — as you’ll recall — some of them have in the past, from time to time, asked you to forward their emails to me.)

    hmmmm…. I am not so sure about that…
    Does the name “dionissis mitropoulos” ring a bell?
    And the lengthy posts whereby he explained WHY he is leaving the forum and because of WHOM?

  26. @ Ted Belman:

    “Stop it. I want you both to ignore each other from now on. Limit your comments to the issue at hand and do not respond to the other’s comment.”

    As you can see, Ted, from Mr Ross’s subsequent comments, your admonition has limited utility. Pursuant to his compulsion to always get in the last word, he will now simply couch his assaults in remarks made ABOUT me to other posters (even yourself), and — as experience has shown — quietly solicit their assistance to that effect in remarks of their own. In this way, he has technically adhered to the letter of your demand while outraging the spirit of it.

    — Of course, and needless to say, that’s a game that two (or more) can play as readily as one.

    And now he has even taken the matter to the point of presuming to ask you to dictate HOW I am to write. I haven’t told HIM (or anyone else) how to write, and he will not SUCCESSFULLY do so to me (with or without your imprimatur).

    The problem you are confronting here is hardly so superficial as you are assuming. It was present before Ross arrived at this site. It was here even before YoursTruly arrived here (which was considerably earlier than that).

    Until you take the root of it in hand, you’ll be kidding yourself. Even if Ross or I — or both of us — were to disappear from the site tomorrow, the problem would remain and soon manifest again in other instances & opportunities.

    The central figure in all this is, as it has always been, YAMIT. Thru the years, lots of people have left the site over disputes with him. (I know this for a fact because — as you’ll recall — some of them have in the past, from time to time, asked you to forward their emails to me.)

    When he finds their presence inconvenient, he pressures them to leave. If they are too strong for that, he solicits support from other posters for his ’cause,’ and gives his OWN support in return.

    Ross and others draw sustenance from this process, sometimes sufficiently so to take the lead in the assault (under any of a number of by-now standard guises), so as to enable Yamit to fade momentarily into the background and thus keep from drawing attention to himself and the reality that he is the central figure in it all.

    That’s ONE thing in all this which has NEVER changed.

  31. Ted Belman Said:

    Limit your comments to the issue at hand and do not respond to the other’s comment.

    Are you also referring and limiting dweller from gratuitously “analyzing” posters here instead of sticking to the issue? I am sick and tired of him using that agenda to insult and abuse posters here. I feel obligated to point out when he uses that disguise to try and personally discredit a persons character. Just as hamas and Israel are not morally equivalent neither am I and Dweller. I only reply in such manner to Dweller when I see him insult posters using psychobabble and when he outright lies.

    I will be happy to stop pointing out his MO if he ceases from that MO and “limits his comments to the issues at hand” Why should posters be subject to that insulting, abusive and obfuscating psychobabble?

    If you notice my last post before this you will see that I am not insulting him but pointing out that 2/3 of his posts were composed of name calling and pointing out that he tells lies while pretending to never tell them. what is wrong with pointing out a persons false statements? I have no problem with sticking to the issues if he does the same but he should not be allowed to continue his insults disguised as psychobabble. analyzing posters as a means to discredit their comments is not “sticking to the issues”

  32. dweller Said:

    @ bernard ross:

    “This constitutes the majority of your 2 posts”
    Dweller said:
    NO, actually it constituted about 40 percent of those 2 posts. At least another 40 percent consisted of blockquoted material from you.

    therefore 40% name calling and 20% not, that means that you had a 2 to 1 ratio of name calling over the rest of your posted content.
    dweller Said:

    And you conspicuously omitted the part where I clearly showed that you’d had a full 12 hours (after my final comment) to post responses to a thread.

    Obviously, as posted twice for you to focus, that is because it was irrelevant to your statement that I was disputing. YOu appear to have a problem focusing on the issue raised by me and disputed by me. I disputed your obviously, simply and clearly inaccurate statement about rarely being “THE LAST POSTER” You appear to mix up my dispute with Yamits. I was very clear about the statement I was disputing and have no reason to discuss other thoughts in your head. Your statement was inaccurate, its as clear as day, perhaps you did not mean to make that specific statement, perhaps you made an error……….but if you stand by the statement I quoted it was proven to be wrong twice this week. I think it is unlikely that you will say you erred in making your statement, I expect you will dress it up and repackage it……it is impossible for you to admit to error…..that is why I enjoy playing with you. You cant help yourself! 😛

  33. @ honeybee:

    “What I said was, ‘I refused to leave under my own power’…”

    “Were you truly against ‘peacetime Conscription’ and the ‘Viet-Nam War’…?

    No, HB, I spent 5 years of my life organizing against it and another year & a half in the joint just for the halibut.

    “…or were you only a born obstructionist…”

    You mean in the same way that YOU are a ‘born’ provocateur?

    — No.

    “…looking for an opportunity for personal gratification ?”

    In the joint???

    You think prison is a gratification-rich environment?

    (Was there a full moon last nite?)

  34. @ dweller:This comment is directed to both dweller and Ross. Stop it. I want you both to ignore each other from now on. Limit your comments to the issue at hand and do not respond to the other’s comment. Enough already. I see no value in your exchanges.

  36. dweller Said:

    What I said was, “I refused to leave under my own power.”

    Were you truly against “peacetime Conscription” and the ” Viet-Nam War” or were you only a born obstructionist looking for an opportunity for personal gratification ??????????

  39. @ bernard ross:

    He claims he didn’t want to leave prison…Hmm I guess he didn’t want to leave all those brutish fellas, if you know what I mean? Or they gave him free use of prison computers. LOL

  41. yamit82 Said:

    honeybee:
    She is Hot but we have even hotter

    You’re the expert !!!!!! Supper is waiting and tuckered out, Sugar. Tough day.

    Muchos Suenos de Amor !!!!!!!!

  43. @ honeybee:

    She is Hot but we have even hotter. I think it was an effective ad and you got to be some kind of prude to think it was pornographic. I don’t think it exuded that much sex. I’ve seen Coke commercials that were more into selling sex than this one.

    Su drone oso de peluche

  47. @ yamit82:

    “You know what Judge Judy says about fools representing themselves dont you…”

    “THINK LIKE -in- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS.”

    I rarely represent myself in court. Need somebody watching your back.

    “He also has claimed to have driven his shrinks (plural) Nuts. Matter of fact he brags about his success. Check the archives.“

    No need to check. Guilty as charged, and delighted to say so.

    It was a hoot and I loved it.

    In fact, in prison, the shrinks ultimately acknowledged that I was right.

    When I left — actually, when the prison admin dragged me out (I refused to leave under my own power) — the shrinks came to my cell on my final day, to wish me well and to thank me for “what you did for [the shrinks’] morale at the facility.”

    In a real sense, they were in prison every bit as much as I was (in some ways, more).

    — Not ‘bragging’ though. Simple fact. True story. No varnish.

  50. @ yamit82:

    “he is not even a good liar.”

    Right.

    Unlike PresentCompany

    and his sleazoid tag-teammate

    — I’m not any kind of a liar.

    Perhaps I should take lessons from you?

    Do you give introductory discounts to beginners?