Iraq and Syria Analysis: How Obama’s “War on Terror” Rhetoric Covers Up a Lack of Strategy

Oliver Thew writes for EA:

Last week, on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, President Obama set out his administration’s strategy for dealing with the Islamic State in a televised speech to the US public. The timing was no coincidence: Obama was addressing the nation on what he considers to be the greatest terrorist threat to the US and the next phase of the War on Terror.

But this War on Terror is not just an abstract fight: Obama is supposed to be setting out a strategy for fighting the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria.

And so the paradox: far from encompassing that strategy, the rhetoric of the War of Terror was chosen by Obama because he lacks an overall approach to deal with the jihadists.

The President is willing to act in Iraq, but only to “degrade” the Islamic State and reduce its potential as a regional threat. Because he does not know what to do in Syria, he cannot pursue his declared intention to “eventually destroy” the organization.

Until last week, the Administration had been careful to avoid using the same kind of emotive language used by President George W. Bush in his “War on Terror” from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay to Iraq. Obama favored a more nuanced style, renaming the ongoing counter-terrorism campaign to a supposedly more specific war against Al Qa’eda and its affiliates and adherents.

But last week Obama returned to a Manichaean struggle between the United States (Sons of Light) and the Islamic State (Sons of Darkness), much as Bush did with Al’Qaeda when he called them “evildoers” and “barbaric criminals”. Rather than describing the Islamic State as a logically-motivated organisation with a realistic strategy and goals, explaining why they captured large swathes of Syria and Iraq, Obama’s speech used moralist language to depict the group as evil, savage, barbaric, and irrational –– “It has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way….These terrorist are unique in their brutality.” Obama even used the same analogy that had been applied to the threat posed by Al Qa’eda, describing the Islamic State as a “cancer”.

Much like previous speeches by the Bush Administration, Obama’s address to the nation was also careful to make the distinction that this terrorist organization does not represent ordinary Muslims. Bush said in his address to the nation on September 20, 2001, “The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam.” The version in last week’s speech: “ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.”

In addition, the speech was filled with notions of American exceptionalism, with any military action being humanitarian, good and just. Obama assured, “Abroad, American leadership is the one constant in an uncertain world. It is America that has the capacity and the will to mobilize the world against terrorists” — an echo of Bush’s September 20 lanuguage:

As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror. This will be an age of liberty here and across the world….Our nation, this generation, will lift the dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage.

None of this, however, constitutes a US “strategy”. None of this gets beyond the rhetorical to set out what should and will be done.

Although Obama has been largely consistent on issues of counter-terrorism, the Islamic State poses a different type of problem to the examples he invoked in the speech, Yemen’s Al Qa’eda in the Arabian Peninsular and Somalia’s Al-Shabaab. The Islamic State is more a quasi-state than a terrorist organisation. And in the cases of Syria and Iraq, where the Administration has struggled for coherence when it comes to states, regimes, and groups within them, that poses a problem which continues to befuddle Washington.

Yet the Obama Administration cannot afford to sit back and do nothing: “If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region – including to the United States.” So the Obama Administration is using the War on Terror rhetoric to build domestic support and give the impression of a defined, plan, and objective, while it continues to search for a strategic political and military approach.

Of course, Obama did not admit this, contending, “Our objective is clear; we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.” He promised:

Working with the Iraqi Government…we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense….We’ve deployed several hundred American service members to Iraq to assess how we can best support Iraqi Security Forces….Wesent an additional 475 service members to Iraq….We will also support Iraq’s efforts to stand up National Guard Units.

Even before the speech, there had been more than 150 airstrikes and the despatch of more than 1,000 Special Operations Forces and military advisors. Last week, General Martin Dempsey suggested that US troops could even a more active role in combat in Iraq if required.

But these are operations, not a joined-up concept of the political and military campaign agianst the jihadists in Iraq. If Obama’s declared steps are no more than the airstrikes and advisors, then this is no more than a support role for the local Iraqi and Kurdish forces who — rather than Americans —are at risk of losing their lives. This is not the destruction of the Islamic State as a regional presence but a degradation of it only to the point where it does not pose a threat to the US.

And if the vision for Iraq is limited, that for Syria is almost non-existent. As the past three years have shown, the Obama administration’s approach has been sluggish and at times confused.

Last week, Obama briefly mentioned that he was willing to conduct airstrikes in Syria and increase support to members of the opposition:

I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria…we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition….I again call on Congress to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters.

However, when converted from general declaration into concrete measures by Obama’s advisors, this was no more than a chimera: perhaps up to 5,000 insurgents would be trained and armed, but only over several months — far from the capacity to pose an immediate problem for the Islamic State, let alone the Assad regime.

Thus, the broadest of language covers rather narrow ideas, at least at this point. The “barbarians” will not be vanquished. At most, they will be contained — “degraded” — so Obama can tell Americans that they are safe from the menace. What lies ahead for Iraq and Syria continues to be murky, far from a resolution apart from a general declaration at some future point that America’s mission has been accomplished.