The following is article I posted to Peace Action affiliates on September 23, 2014. I believe that this article is still relevant today, as the bombing of ISIS continues.
During an address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama said that one of his goals was to shift the United States from "a perpetual war footing." Also last year, Obama said he wanted to "refine" and eventually do away with the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Yet, Obama's press secretary cited the AUMF as the legal basis for the bombing in Iraq and maybe later in Syria.
President Obama's overall strategic goal is to ultimately destroy ISIS; however, there is no way of knowing how long that may take. The strong consensus among military experts is that ISIS cannot be destroyed without the deployment of a large armed force on the ground. Obama has insisted time-and-time again that there will l;not be U.S. boots on the ground, beyond he 1,500 troops already committed there. Australia has promised 600 troops but as yet there are no promised troop commitments. Saudi Arabia has reportedly has agreed train some 5,000 "moderate" opposition armed forces in Syria.
One of President Obama's stated objectives is to train Iraqi forces; however, after about eight years of U.S. training, substantial Iraqi forces broke and ran when confronted with a much smaller ISIS force. In addition to Iraq, the U.S. record of training foreign troops is one of failure: President Reagan had to hastily pull U.S. Marines out of Lebanon after the tragic bombing of a Marine barracks -- one mission of the Marines was to train militia forces supportive of U.S.interests; many of the Central American military forces trained at the School of the Americas -- since renamed -- returned home to torture and kill their own citizens; and our long-term training of Afghan forces has yet to pay any identifiable dividends.
Another of the objectives of Obama's ISIS policy is to have a more inclusive government in Baghdad. That objective may seem to have been met by he ouster of Nouri al-Maliki, whose tenure was marked by putting Shiites into positions of policy implementation and imprisoning thousands of military-age Sunni males. It was either CNN of MSNBC that six U.S. individuals occupying what are considered to be the top six national security positions. The Iraqi comparison picture showed that al-Maliki had, at one time or another, occupied every one of the six positions. Yet, al-Maliki had an inclusive regime at the top, as he had a Kurdish president, a Sunni as one of the three vice presidents, and Sunnis and Kurds heading some of the cabinet positions.
Thus, the conclusion to be reached is that having diversity at he top levels of the government doesn't necessarily translate to inclusiveness at the policy implementation level, where the rubber meets the road. The most important step is to share oil revenue with the Sunni population, as otherwise the Sunnis will be relatively impoverished in the provinces where they are mostly concentrated.
Unless the Sunni population becomes convinced that the government is acting to meet their needs and share the oil wealth, Sunni tribal leaders will likely throw in with any force that is trying to overthrow the current Iraqi government. U.S. bombing would hen be seen as the air force of a government they abhor.
A poll published after President Obama's speech on his ISIS policy found that 62 percent of the respondents agreed with Obama's stated policies to defeat ISIS. An Albuquerque Journal newspaper poll published on September 13, 2014, found that 59 percent felt Obama had not done enough to confront ISIS before his September 10 speech. After the speech, however, 46 percent felt he had not done enough. Those who felt he was doing the right amount rose from 29 to 41 percent. This same effect occurs after State of the Union speeches, where the president's stated policies show major jumps in approval in after-speech polling.
I have yet to see a poll in which the beheading of two Americans is assessed as to its effect on polling results.
Israel's horrific bombing of Lebanon was triggered by the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers to build the animosity of the Israelis towards Hamas and to conduct house-to-house searches. Hamas was ultimately found not to have played an identifiable role in the teenagers' deaths. The point being made here is that nations cannot use harm done to their nationals overseas, no matter how severe the harm done to individuals, to retaliate with strong military force. Could it be that ISIS had calculatedly determined that beheading would surely cause the U.S. to respond with increased military force, thus positioning ISIS in world opinion as the David who had goaded a military Goliath to respond?
If here is a new "axis of evil" regarding the security interests of he United States, Iran and Syria would top hat list. Ironically, the U.S. is in an undeclared league with Iran to save the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad. As Eugene Robinson, Washington Post columnist, has pointed out in an article republished in the September 13, 2014 Albuquerque Journal, Obama's stated policy is that Assad must go, but U.S. military action now promises to make it easier for him to stay. Robinson also writes that airstrikes in Syria will make it easier for Assad to take much of his country back.
Eugene Robinson adds that to "expect a force that recently proved itself incompetent to be changed overnight into a fighting machine is not realistic, I fear." As for Saudi Arabia, it has "done more than any other country to finance the spread of jihadist philosophy throughout the Muslim world."
When Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel testified before the Senate Committee on Armed Services, he asserted that President Obama had both the constitutional and statutory authority to bomb in Iraq and Syria without any additional authorization from Congress. When asked if a new AUMF was necessary, Hagel said he had never considered it.
Hagel is clearly wrong about constitutional authority, as the Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war. Not only that, but Article I states that Congress has the power: "to make rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval fores" now including, of course, air forces. Congress could regulate all U.S. forces out of a combat zone.
Hagel's defense of he AUMF as legal cover for executive branch war-making is legally shaky, as many lawmakers who voted for it didn't think it was intended to give all future presidents the power to start any war of their choosing.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of he Joint Chiefs of Staff, appearing before the same committee as Chuck Hagel, threw up some troubling portents of the future. He used years and even "a generation" as the possible time it would take to destroy ISIS. When pushed by Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) as to whether it might be better to embed U.S. Special Forces with Iraqi forward combat units, Dempsey said it is not currently necessary due to technological advances; however, if he ever felt it was necessary, President Obama had assured him that he, Dempsey, could come back on a case-by-case basis. Unless Obama was deceiving General Dempsey by saying, in effect, "You can come back to me but I'm never going to approve your recommendation," Obama would, at some point, find it necessary to approve such a request. It would be very difficult for Obama to argue that he didn't break his promise of new boots on the ground if U.S. troops are embedded with Iraqi combat units fighting ISIS.
In conclusion, if the combination of U.S. bombing and whatever ground troops have been introduced have not been enough to destroy ISIS, as Obama nears the end of his tenure in office, he may be forced to send in thousands of U.S. ground troops or somehow try to get out of his pledge to destroy ISIS.
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