Saving Iraq and destroying ISIL are not the same thing
It has been reported that President Obama is revisiting his policy toward Syria. Perhaps he is now pausing to assess, before incautiously and unadvisedly wading into a conflict with no clear or imaginable resolution. But before he leads America into the next season of a regional conflict he wants a better plan, and he has […]Jonathan Lord writes for War on the Rocks:
It has been reported that President Obama is revisiting his policy toward Syria. Perhaps he is now pausing to assess, before incautiously and unadvisedly wading into a conflict with no clear or imaginable resolution. But before he leads America into the next season of a regional conflict he wants a better plan, and he has turned to his national security advisors to provide him with one.
Thus far, the results have not inspired much confidence. As reported by CNN and according to senior officials, the President’s national security team’s meetings were “driven to a large degree [to determine] how our Syria strategy fits into our ISIS strategy.” One senior official was quoted: “The President has asked us to look again at how this fits together. The long-running Syria problem is now compounded by the reality that to genuinely defeat ISIL, we need not only a defeat in Iraq but a defeat in Syria.” The quote conveys the misguided nature of the entire exercise. Now that terrorist organizations have declared allegiance to ISIL in Sinai, Libya and Pakistan, will we now need to formulate a plan to “genuinely defeat” the group’s ideological adherents in these places as well?
