This President appears to be clueless. He’s the commander-in-chief. The leader of the free world. And even if he doesn’t have a strategy for dealing with the forces of evil at loose in Iraq and Syria, who are literally lopping off heads and forcing Christians to convert to Islam or die, he doesn’t need to announce it publicly.
No wonder our friends no longer trust us, and our enemies no longer fear us.
President Obama’s own Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, called ISIS an “imminent threat” to the United States. And Democratic Senator, Dianne Feinstein, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated that ISIS is a “vicious, vicious movement, and it has to be confronted” and that President Obama has been “too cautious” in dealing with ISIS. They’re both right.
A reasonable, common sense strategy to defeat ISIS would include the following elements. Immediately call Congress back into session to get the expertise and approval of the elected representatives of the American people. Pull together a coalition of the willing. After all, ISIS is very unpopular with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Kurdistan (effectively a country), Britain, France, Australia, and what’s left of Iraq and Syria. Iran also hates ISIS, but I’d always be mindful that Iran can be trusted about as much as you can trust Russia (and that’s not much.)
I would limit the U.S. combat role to air power and the special forces necessary to effectively target the enemy, and coordinate and lead the ground forces, which should be overwhelmingly Arab.
And when ISIS is defeated, the U.S. needs to remain engaged in what happens after the military campaign is over. That’s what the Obama administration failed to do with Iraq, which resulted in the current ISIS disaster. That’s also what the Obama Administration failed to do in Libya, after overthrowing Gadhafi, and we now see militia groups overrunning the American embassy compound in Tripoli, and diving off the roof into the swimming pool (not that this trespassing in our pool is such a big deal, but the murder of our Ambassador and three other brave Americans in Benghazi, Libya, certainly was.) And that’s what the Obama Administration is about to do in Afghanistan, with the same potentially disastrous results we’ve seen in Iraq. (The Taliban can’t wait to take that country back to the 7th century.)
So, President Obama. Even though you’ve already announced to the world that you don’t have a strategy for dealing with ISIS, you’d better put one together, quickly. Because if you don’t, not only will innocent people be losing their lives in Syria and Iraq, but the victims could be right here at home.