I spoke with Monocle 24’s The Daily on Wednesday night and with BBC Radio Wales on Thursday morning about President Obama’s latest speech on the campaign in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State.
On the surface, Obama rebuffed the head of the US military, who said on Tuesday that American special forces could join the Iraqi counter-offensive against the jihadists. But was his declaration as simple as this?
And what about Syria, which was almost absent from the President’s statement?
Monocle 24: Listen to discussion from 6:45 on The Daily’s homepage or in a pop-out window
BBC Radio Wales: Listen from 1:36.42
The situation in Iraq is not a black-or-white “No Troops In or No Troops Out”. It’s a much more complex way the US is trying to fight this war against the Islamic State.
Obama’s speech wasn’t a strategy speech. It was playing to the audience at home….
Let’s be honest: more than 1,000 American personnel have gone in, supporting the Iraqi counter-offensive. But you don’t want to admit the full depth of what you are getting into.
And Syria?
The Americans will not admit…that if you want to defeat the Islamic State in Syria, you have to got to work with local forces — and that means the insurgents who have been fighting the Assad regime as well as the jihadists. You have got to give them weapons, you have got to give them information, you have to give them air cover.
And the Americans will not go that far. They are too scared because they have reduced the conflict to “extremists” versus the Islamic State.
