Backed into a Corner by Events, Obama Must Produce a Middle East Policy

This week, Republican Senator John McCain called for a dramatic increase in US airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and said the attacks should also extend into Syria. McCain told Reuters that the beheading of American journalist James Foley by ISIS militants should serve as a turning point for President Obama's deliberations on how to deal with the group. "First of all, you've got to dramatically increase the airstrikes. And those airstrikes have to be devoted to Syria as well," McCain said, adding : "I don't think there's any doubt that this horrible video [of James Foley's beheading] on the Internet is bound to have an impact on the American people. The nature of the brutality of this organization has been brought home by this." McCain said hitting ISIS targets in Syria is necessary because the militants have captured military equipment in Mosul, the Iraqi city they seized in June, and moved it into enclaves inside Syria. "We have to defeat them, not stop them," he said. The Arizona Senator also said the United States should arm Iraqi Kurds and help arrange a reconciliation between shiites and sunnis in Iraq. ~~~~~ Senator McCain isn't the only American political leader urging more robust action from President Obama in dealing with ISIS. Many lawmakers and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have urged Obama to arm Syrian rebels to push back at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and ISIS militants. Others are urging the White House to engage with its partners and those moderate Syrians who are fighting ISIS and to directly target ISIS leadership and networks in Iraq and Syria. "If this doesn't happen," Senator Marco Rubio said : "I fear that James Foley will not be the only American to die at their hands." In another indication of opposition to Obama's Syria-Iraq position, the Daily Beast reported on August 12th that Obama, in a White House foreign policy meeting on July 31 with House and Senate leaders, was pressed over his administration’s handling of requests made by Syrian opposition groups for arms and other support. A lawmaker said the President got visibly angry after both Democrats and Republicans questioned his policy. Senator Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked a long question in which he sharply criticized a series of US foreign policies, a lawmaker said. Obama responded by defending the administration’s approach in Syria, arguing that the idea that arming the rebels earlier would have produced a better outcome was “horse ****,” the lawmaker told the Daily Beast. White House officials confirmed the tense exchange, but did not confirm the President's use of the expletive, the report said. ~~~~~ Pressure is also coming from his own military leaders to go after ISIS inside Syria. Army General Michael Dempsey characterized ISIS as an apocalyptic organization that cannot be merely halted, but must be defeated not only in Iraq but in Syria as well. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said : "Can they be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in Syria? The answer is no. That will have to be addressed on both sides of what is essentially at this point a nonexistent border." At the Pentagon press conference with Dempsey, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said ISIS "is as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that we have seen. They're beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded. Oh, this is beyond anything that we've seen. So we must prepare for everything." He said the only way to do that is take a "cold, steely hard look" and "get ready." ~~~~~ With this heavy bi-partisan criticism swirling around it, the Obama White House must create a response to its growing number of critics. Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said on Friday that Syria proposals have not yet been presented to the President, but Rhodes said : "We've shown time and again that if there's a counterterrorism threat, we'll take direct action against that threat, if necessary." For three years, President Obama has resisted committing US military in Syria. He refused to engage when the Syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians, and when ISIS militants used the chaos to strengthened their position, and when the civil war death toll climbed to 180,000. But, now Obama must decide whether the ISIS murder of American journalist James Foley, and the broader threat the group could pose to US and Western interests, should change his cautious approach. He must weigh the dangers of doing very little against his aversion to the risks possible from plunging the United States back into a region torn apart by intractable secular conflict. Even before Foley's murder, Obama found himself on far different footing in the Middle East than he expected, or signaled, early in his presidency. After running for president by promising to end the Iraq war and making good on that promise in late 2011, Obama was forced to thrust the US military back into Iraq this summer with a limited airstrike campaign against ISIS targets. President Obama has said that he will not commit the US military to another ground war in the Middle East, but he has increased the US military presence in Iraq in the air and as advisors, putting himself in a situation that could consume much of his last two years in office. ~~~~~ And Syria? Mainstream rebels and al-Assad forces have been engaged in a civil war for more than three years. Unlike Iraq, the Syria battle lines are clearer. Syria has many different military players, including ISIS, the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, mainstream 'Western-backed' rebels and al-Assad government forces. Obama's critics say he gave extremists an opening in Iraq by not doing more to reach an agreement with the Iraqi government to leave US forces in the country after 2011. They say his decision to not provide heavy weaponry to more moderate rebel groups in Syria also helped facilitate the ISIS rise there. Recently, the White House has been imploring sunni states in the region - Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates in particular - to wield their influence with tribal leaders in Iraq and get them to push ISIS out of areas they have occupied. The White House is also pursuing ways for traditional allies such as Great Britain, Europe, Canada and Australia to become involved through intelligence sharing, military assistance for Kurdish forces in Iraq and moderate opposition forces in Syria, and if necessary, joining the US in military action. Without a course correction, Obama's critics argue, the US will be at greater risk. ~~~~~ Dear readers, if, as his critics are urging, Obama decides to expand US airstrikes into Syria, he will be helping al-Assad, whom he has long sought to replace as president. But, if Obama decides to use the opportunity presented by US aircraft flying missions in Syria to attack al-Assad sites as well, he could be engaging America to make a long-term commitment to rebuilding Syria, something he has tried to avoid. In the alternative, if Obama refuses to go after ISIS in Syria, he is giving it an undisturbed safe haven in which to strengthen and become a threat not just to US interests in the region, but also to the US at home. And politically, it would support his critics' argument that he is overseeing an American retreat on the world stage. There are no easy answers. But it is essential that President Obama, in consultation with Congress, create a clear strategic Middle East policy. If that policy, as it should, includes searching out ISIS in Syria as well as in Iraq, then Obama must explain to America and to the people and governments of the Middle East, as well as to Europe and other allies, whether and why the US is or is not supporting al-Assad. He must fit this into a cohesive Middle East policy whose goals are support for US allies, including Israel, and a declared intention to work with them to stabilize the region with the least possible regime change in allied countries, but with a determination to build the economic, educational and political infrastructures that will lead to a middle class that prospers and understands for itself the dangers of kowtowing to terrorists like ISIS, who use their deranged idea of Islam as a weapon for war and suppression.