Chronicles of Obama's Foreign Policy Failure - ISIS/ISIL

[ksen]

Nothing says liberty like eternal military occupation.

 

[maxparrish]

Interestingly, Obama's strategy is neither a victory nor an exit strategy - it is a "just enough" strategy to contain ISIS, hoping the hapless Iraqi's and out-gunned "moderate Syrians (whoever they are)" can turn it around. Yet, the administration has yet to negotiate a final set of training sites, and are yet to vet any potential recruits.

I'm not sure what "victory" means or would look like. But Obama's strategy is fine. Just contain them, let them continue to duke it out between them for another 1,500 years if necessary.

Obama's "strategy" was to ignore ISIS till it became a crisis in Iraq. His current strategy is needlessly meek and prolonged. Since last summer it has been clear that minimally special forces and forward observers should have been deployed to direct air strikes, the Kurds should have been properly armed, and 3,000 'advisors' be supplemented by 7,000 or more combat troops.

Moreover, Obama's air campaign is not serious - 2000 air strikes over 7 or 8 months is an average of only 10 per day. In the air war of 1991 and 2003 the allies conducted 1000 strikes each DAY! Whereas in 2003 the US deployed six carriers to the theater, Obama has only deployed ONE. Does anyone doubt that if Obama had the backbone, he could reduce every oil well in ISIS controlled territory to a burning pyre?

And the result of Obama's strategy?

ISIS is winning - Obama's 'strategy' is failing.

 

[TSwizzle]

Obama's "strategy" was to ignore ISIS till it became a crisis in Iraq.

I'm not even sure it's a crisis even for Iraq. Seems there are plenty Iraqis on board the caliphate train.

His current strategy is needlessly meek and prolonged. Since last summer it has been clear that minimally special forces and forward observers should have been deployed to direct air strikes, the Kurds should have been properly armed, and 3,000 'advisors' be supplemented by 7,000 or more combat troops.

Moreover, Obama's air campaign is not serious - 2000 air strikes over 7 or 8 months is an average of only 10 per day. In the air war of 1991 and 2003 the allies conducted 1000 strikes each DAY! Whereas in 2003 the US deployed six carriers to the theater, Obama has only deployed ONE. Does anyone doubt that if Obama had the backbone, he could reduce every oil well in ISIS controlled territory to a burning pyre?

I think there is some merit for the humanitarian intervention for helping out yazidis trapped on a mountain but I agree, either bomb the shit out them (not going to happen) or leave them to it. I don't understand the casual drive by bombing raids.

And the result of Obama's strategy?

ISIS is winning - Obama's 'strategy' is failing.

So what if ISIS are winning ? They are winning because they have popular support.

 

[ksen]

Let me get this straight, the guy who considers our federal government equal to the Keystone Kops when it "interferes" in the economy believes it will act with the wisdom of Solomon if it "interferes" in another country?

 

[arkirk]

Let me get this straight, the guy who considers our federal government equal to the Keystone Kops when it "interferes" in the economy believes it will act with the wisdom of Solomon if it "interferes" in another country?

There is wisdom is not insinuating yourself in conflicts in which you have no part. You can offer to broker peace negotiations, but really, the parties there don't even have any interest in that. When Charles Taylor's forces were trying to take over Liberia, their behavior was similar to that of ISIS. You know where he is today. This ISIS will not ever govern regardless of how much territory they seize. We ought to in these cases just offer to broker peace and nothing else. To do more is to take a position in favor of one or another of these factions and none of them offer anything to the people of Syria but killing and destruction. None of them offers anything that is even remotely like what the U.S. pretends to support. It is an ideal place to not be. U.S. participation in this conflict is pointless.

 

[fromderinside]

There is wisdom is not insinuating yourself in conflicts in which you have no part. You can offer to broker peace negotiations, but really, the parties there don't even have any interest in that. When Charles Taylor's forces were trying to take over Liberia, their behavior was similar to that of ISIS. You know where he is today. This ISIS will not ever govern regardless of how much territory they seize. We ought to in these cases just offer to broker peace and nothing else. To do more is to take a position in favor of one or another of these factions and none of them offer anything to the people of Syria but killing and destruction. None of them offers anything that is even remotely like what the U.S. pretends to support. It is an ideal place to not be. U.S. participation in this conflict is pointless.

Well put.

Let me extend. Bush's upsetting of the cart by unhinging the constraints on Shites in Iraq led to all too predictable outcomes. Shias taking revenge on Sunni who supported the secular Baathist party was obvious/ So was the Baathist seeking their revenge in both Syria and Iraq as nihilist mercenaries. Now they overreach predictably by declaring themselves a catafalque which burns prisoners alive. Anyone want to guess their fate?

In fact Obama has been on a mission to disconnect Russia from Hassad in Syria with economic figs designed to save Russia face and continued existence of Putin. In the meantime Europeans have had time to get up the nerve to oppose the little Russian dictator with no clothes in the Ukraine. Russia with its minuscule economy and manufacturing capacity can do nothing other than threaten the west with nuclear blackmail.

He is not prepared to back up that threat in any meaningful way should we restart the bipolar struggle. I'm sure Russia's nuclear deterrent is is worse repair than is ours so iL'm pretty sure he won't even threaten. All he has is people which, right now, are being lost to him by Putin caused financial disarray in all Russian language communities.

Back up on your horse old boy. Be sure to take off your shirt. It's going to be Oh so effective with McCain and the chicken hawks./snark

 

[Trausti]

ISIS is winning - Obama's 'strategy' is failing.

or

 

[Axulus]

Those beating the war drum, it seems to me, are largely responsible for the present brouhaha. Our military adventurism has a history of blowback and unintended consequences - allies turning against us, power vacuums filled by thugs and fundamentalists, &c.

It's kind-of gone downhill since WWII

 

[Ford]

Obama's "strategy" was to ignore ISIS till it became a crisis in Iraq. His current strategy is needlessly meek and prolonged. Since last summer it has been clear that minimally special forces and forward observers should have been deployed to direct air strikes, the Kurds should have been properly armed, and 3,000 'advisors' be supplemented by 7,000 or more combat troops.

Combat troops from where?

Moreover, Obama's air campaign is not serious - 2000 air strikes over 7 or 8 months is an average of only 10 per day. In the air war of 1991 and 2003 the allies conducted 1000 strikes each DAY! Whereas in 2003 the US deployed six carriers to the theater, Obama has only deployed ONE.

Those were full-blown wars designed to defeat a nation-state's military (1991) and topple the regime of the same nation-state (2003). Those campaigns involved (more or less) the full power of the US military brought to bear - missile strikes, an air campaign, special forces, and a full-scale invasion with a hundred thousand soldiers and support.

Basically what you seem to be saying is that anything short of a massive invasion/air campaign and naval operation would be "meek."

Does anyone doubt that if Obama had the backbone, he could reduce every oil well in ISIS controlled territory to a burning pyre?

Ah, burning the oil wells. That sounds familiar.

ISIS is winning - Obama's 'strategy' is failing.

ISIS has been successful taking territory in Iraq and Syria, and has been successful against the forces deployed by those countries. It is up to those countries - not the US - to fight the battles to regain that territory. It is not our job to defeat ISIS. Just as it was not our job to topple Saddam (although we stupidly did so anyway), and just as it is not our job to decide the outcome of the Syrian civil war.

 

[Valjean]

Every time we deploy the military to fix something (usually caused by a previous military adventure) it comes back to bite us in the arse. Will we never learn?
Quit poking the hornet's nest and you won't get stung.

 

[bilby]

And the result of Obama's strategy?

ISIS is winning - Obama's 'strategy' is failing.

OMG ISIS have invaded the country they live in!!

No doubt Arizona is next on their list. They love the desert.

If Phoenix falls, I will remember to blame Obama. But as long as they continue their strategy of keeping an entire ocean between themselves and the USA, it is probably not the business of the POTUS to get involved. Certainly there seems to be fuck all justification for a single American life to be risked to defend Syria from the Syrians.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Every time we deploy the military to fix something (usually caused by a previous military adventure) it comes back to bite us in the arse. Will we never learn?
Quit poking the hornet's nest and you won't get stung.

Maybe we're just looking for the enemy in the wrong places. Maybe they're hiding in here somewhere.

 

[Togo]

So max is in favour of more governement intervention?

 

[Harry Bosch]

Six months ago Obama's lassitude and lethargy on foreign policy reached a new high. ISIS, "the JVs", caught Obama flat-footed and unprepared, in spite of six months to year of warning. Like the Ukraine crisis, (as Panetta and Hillary have politely confirmed) Obama's cultivated obliviousness is part of his interest in doing as little as possible, and risking little. His resolve to do nothing began to yield after being harassed by public outrage and the press to do something to check an ongoing genocide of Christian sects. After a few "humanitarian" missions and a few air strikes his strategy remained a mystery culminating with his Aug 28th announcement: “We don’t have a strategy yet.”

Interestingly, Obama's strategy is neither a victory nor an exit strategy - it is a "just enough" strategy to contain ISIS, hoping the hapless Iraqi's and out-gunned "moderate Syrians (whoever they are)" can turn it around. Yet, the administration has yet to negotiate a final set of training sites, and are yet to vet any potential recruits.

As Rubin of the Washington Post recently observed:

If there is one thing the right and left, Democrats and Republicans, politicians and experts could all agree on, it was that President Obama’s take on the world is shockingly delusional. The most common question seems to be: Could he believe what he was saying?

On MSNBC Andrea Mitchell said flat-out that the president has a “credibility problem”: “It’s really hard to see what the progress has been against ISIS in Syria for sure, and in Iraq. He will say there is now a government in Iraq and that there is a more secular government in Iraq, a more inclusive government in Iraq. But to claim progress against ISIS and against terrorism, especially on a day when Yemen is fraught with the possibility of collapse and we’ve got a new hostage video from ISIS with Japanese hostages, is really hard to fathom.” Over on NBC, foreign reporter Richard Engel declared that the president’s insistence that we are winning against the Islamic State was fictional. “It sounded like the president was outlining a world that he wishes we were all living in but is very different from the world that you just described,” he said. Obama’s assertion that we have stopped the Islamic State’s advances “just isn’t the case . . . There was a general tone . . . of suspended disbelief when he was talking about foreign policy.” ...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said it was “delusional” to claim success on the same day (that) Yemen — the country Obama previously claimed as an example of the rightness of his foreign policy — fell to Iranian-backed rebels.

...Bloomberg’s foreign policy investigative reporter, Josh Rogin, “translated” the president’s absurd statements. As for his boast his foreign policy is “smarter,” Rogin wisecracked that this really meant: “I campaigned on the idea that we needed to restore America’s image in the world and I’m going to claim that this has happened and is yielding benefits, without specifying what exactly those benefits are....

But Rogin (“I’m prepared to call anybody who is for sanctions a warmonger, whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat. You’ll probably do it anyway, but I’ll try to make it as painful as possible.”) and others reserved their harshest criticism for the president’s misleading and nonsensical comments about Iran....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...t-last-obama-is-delusional-on-foreign-policy/

In the meantime, it was just announced that UAE has pulled out of the coalition.

So much for leading from behind.

We tried the republican "nanny-state" foreign policy, and it didn't work. It gave us ISIS. The great Iraqi army in Mosel, which had 100,000 troops, equipped with the greatest weaponry in the world and 7 years of US training, was defeated by 350 ISIS troops! We should not put any troops on the ground in the ME until we have real arab allies who are willing to fight. We cannot do it alone. Obama's policy of "lassitude and lethargy" is forcing the moderate Arabs to fight for themselves. It's very early, but it appears that moderate Arabs are making a comeback (lead by Jordan?).

 

[lpetrich]

So max is in favour of more governement intervention?

So it would seem. He does not seem to be organizing a "Ronald Reagan Brigade" to fight there.

Name inspired by the Abraham Lincoln Brigade of Americans who fought on the side of the left in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's.

 

[Draconis]

Hmmm, it's long been a problem in that part of the world: "who do we back?" ie, the old enemy or the new one? It could be better to just let them sort it out: as long as the oil keeps flowing and the region does not blow up too much, it's good to do nothing. Or perhaps nothing official.

There's just nobody big enough or determined enough or arm-twistable enough or who we like enough to make it all go away. Oh, and we have enough troubles with Russia and perhaps a squabble between Japan and China. Which "friend" do we wish to antagonize first? If you're Obama and apparently incapable of making that call, then doing nothing very much seems a natural course.