Now, this criticism simply isn’t correct. Cite. All the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, plus Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and Lebanon, have publicly stated that they are with the US on this one. As insightful as the academics and think-tankers that you quoted may be, they don’t get to speak for their governments, especially because their governments are singing off the same sheet of music.
Funny thing with Egypt, on the same day they said: “Egypt says global action needed to counter Islamic State” and “Egypt refuses to send troops to fight IS in Iraq and Syria.” Apparently global means all-minus-Egypt, or perhaps it just means The USA. How many of the other countries (besides Iraq and Syria) will be putting any meaningful number of soldiers on the ground or planes in the sky? Egypt is out. Lebanon, not a chance. Jordan, nope (they’re already pretty spooked about the whole training and arming of Syrian rebel groups). Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman: nope. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, The Emirates: perhaps a few planes but probably not, no boots.
What actually does “being with the US on this one” mean besides pretty words? Almost nothing. No, you’re on your own on this one. A few European nations might send some planes and some SF. And Saudi Arabia says they’ll train Syrian rebel groups. Somehow that doesn’t sound too reassuring.
Well, there’s “support” and then there’s support. I guess it remains to be seen how much useful military support is given by any of those countries, especially in Syria. ISIL is headquartered in Syria, as I’m sure you know. You don’t defeat ISIL without “boots on the ground” in Syria.
The US isn’t even putting boots on the ground. So these Arab states could make the same argument about OUR level of commitment as you make about theirs.
Funny how the Washington Post manages to find representatives of Arab countries to articulate the same doubts/criticisms of Obama as conservatives. What an amazing coincidence!
Exactly. That’s the problem. NO ONE is fully committed.
We don’t have to be. I firmly believe this new plan was promoted by two things: one, the media and public pressing Obama to do something in the face of the news reports and beheading videos. And two, Obama’s own miscue in announcing there was no plan in dealing with IS.
If it wasn’t for those two things, I really think Obama has no interest in getting involved at all.
Perhaps. Of course the USA already has plenty of men on the ground in the form of advisers and special forces. But if nobody is really committed to the idea, I say go home and call it a day. A half-hearted effort is not going to result in a favourable outcome.
ISIS also has a 26yo American girl, and two young Italian girls in their 20s. We’ve seen decapitation of men before, but men are disposable. But for the girls, it’s hard to imagine an act that could cause as must revulsion in the minds of Westerners as the decapitation of young Western girls. Who knows what the reaction would be. Allegedly Al Qaeda stopped short of targeting US nuclear plants in the 9/11 attacks for fear of things spiralling out of control. I don’t think ISIS has these internal stops.
The criticism was that nobody is actually with Obama’s plan. That’s clearly not true, as I’ve cited the evidence.
Your criticisms are that Obama’s plan doesn’t go far enough. That has nothing to do with countries signing up to support Obama’s plan. It’s a non sequitur.
Personally, I think the idea that the two of you seem to be proposing (that foreign troops ought to put together some kind of invasion or occupation force to go into Syria) is simply a terrible one.
The plan is, as I’m sure you’ve read in the papers, to have the Syrian opposition be the boots on the ground that you’re complaining aren’t being committed by other countries. I think this is both the better, and yet the slower, way to proceed. It will probably take several years before the Free Syrian Army and it’s associates can get their act together to actually control the areas that ISIL will have to abandon. But better have Syrians in the lead establishing security (eventually) than have Paul Bremmer, Jr landing in al-Raqqah in chinos and Timberland boots and acting like an imperialist.
Plus, the idea that there needs to be a whole lot of planes swarming around Syria and Iraq for this plan to work - and that we need Qatar and UAE to send their fighters - I think is probably incorrect. I’ll bet any one of your right now that this campaign is going to look nothing like Shock and Awe, with many thousands of sorties a week against ISIL. I think it is going to look a lot more like the air strikes taken in Iraq over the last month: carefully targeted, specific purposes, maybe a couple a day… but continued for the next few years.
Frankly, the best thing that the Gulf States could do has nothing to do with troops or airplanes. The best thing they could possibly offer is to commit to stop financing extremist Syrian opposition groups, and throw all their weight behind the relatively weak moderate opposition. Let’s see if they follow up on that.
The (made up by me) Obama Doctrine:
Sec 1. If your government cannot detect, prosecute, and prevent ongoing and large scale terrorist activities, it has ceased to become a legitimate government as it has shown that it cannot perform the basic functions of government.
The world community should replace (or we will do it) your government with one that can do this basic function.
Sec 2. If we help put in a new government as described in section 1, we will make sure that you aren’t the same impotent types. If you are, we reboot.
I’m only proposing that it has to be done if your objective is to defeat ISIL. This thread is about winning the war. I personally don’t think we should go to war with ISIL, but that’s not the topic of this thread.
I don’t think we really know who the “boots on the ground” in Syria are going to be. If it’s the FSA, then I think that is a very dangerous plan as their allegiances seem to shift with the wind. Plus, Assad isn’t going to help us let the FSA defeat ISIL. He’ll do what he’s been doing, which is to bomb the FSA when they seem to be making any gains against ISIL.
Never said it was going to be, so why would I want to bet that it will be?
Yeah, let’s see. Remember that Assad has Russia and Iran on his side, and they are not going to want to see him taken down.
What are we doing here? I mean, seriously. What the hell are we doing here? Call me a callous, inhumane bastard, but if we’re going to do anything in there, it needs to be something effective. Like a specifically non-tactical nuclear strike. Nothing short of a campaign of complete eradication will get it across to the people responsible that we mean business in a way that will make them stop, and even that probably won’t work (obviously ignoring how completely horrible that would be, ethically speaking). The US has no place being there. Every time we overturn one insane group of islamicist terrorists, another one springs up. Nothing will work. We need to ignore them. Fight them on our soil, and let them be someone else’s problem. Anyone characterizing the president as “weak” for not going after these guys is clinically insane. You cannot win this war.
That’s why the UN needs to wake up and realize that this place is a lawless region without any sovereign government.
To make yourself a sovereign government exempt from world/UN/US occupation you must take steps to contain these groups. We have terrorists in our country (McVeigh and his ilk; we prosecute them). If YOU (the general you) are too impotent and allow these groups to operate with impunity in your country, the tough luck, you are out.
Isn’t this the sort of thing that IS the job of the UN? So where the fuck are they other than jerking each other off?
Can you cite the part of its charter that says that IS the job of the UN?
None of the major powers want to give the UN a significant amount of power (nor do many of the medium size and small size powers) .
Was the UN charter mean to be taken so hyper-literally that a state could be presumptively usurped by outlaws but that body should ignore it?
I think that getting rid of ISIL can be justified under the recently developed “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. But you need UNSC authorization, and it’s unclear that an action to defeat ISIL could include an action to overthrow Assad.
Now, Assad’s actions could easily trigger its own R2P action, but you know that Russia and probably China would never approve that.
Cool. You just justified Israel invading Lebanon when Hizbollah attacks in the future. Note that I am not complaining, really.
Wonder why? I’m sure they don’t like having ISIS next door.
ISIL is holding lots of Turkish diplomats hostage. They don’t want to see a series of beheadings.