(Washington Post) – President
Obama’s strategy to beat back Islamic State militants spread across
Iraq and Syria will depend on far more than U.S. bombs and missiles hitting
their intended targets.
In Iraq, dissolved elements of the army will
have to regroup and fight with conviction. Political leaders will have to reach
compromises on the allocation of power and money in ways that have eluded them
for years. Disenfranchised Sunni tribesmen will have to muster the will to join
the government’s battle. European and Arab allies will have to hang together,
Washington will have to tolerate the resurgence of Iranian-backed Shiite
militias it once fought, and U.S. commanders will have to orchestrate an air
war without ground-level guidance from American combat forces.
“Harder than anything we’ve tried to do thus
far in Iraq or Afghanistan” is how one U.S. general involved in war planning
described the challenges ahead on one side of the border that splits the
so-called Islamic State.
But defeating the group in neighboring Syria
will be even more difficult, according to U.S. military and diplomatic
officials. The strategy imagines weakening the Islamic State without indirectly
strengthening the ruthless government led by Bashar al-Assad or a rival network
of al-Qaeda affiliated rebels — while simultaneously trying to build up a
moderate Syrian opposition.
All that “makes Iraq seem easy,” the general
said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share views on policy. “This is
the most complex problem we’ve faced since 9/11. We don’t have a precedent for
this.”
The Syria side of the campaign remains a work
in progress at the Pentagon, CIA and White House. The development of an
operational plan is further complicated by a lack of intelligence — U.S. drones
have not been flying over Islamic State-controlled parts of the country for
long — and the absence of allied local forces that can leverage U.S. airstrikes
into territorial gains.
The consequence will be a military campaign
unlike the opening days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when tens of thousands of
U.S. troops charged into the country and toppled Saddam Hussein’s government in
three weeks. Nor will it resemble the troop surges in Baghdad and southern
Afghanistan, when American forces sought to counter militants by protecting the
civilian population. Closer analogues, Obama said Wednesday night, are the
counterterrorism campaigns the U.S. waged in Yemen and Somalia, in which the
United States has relied on drone strikes and the occasional Special Operations
raid to kill or capture high-level targets, but placed no American boots on the
ground for extended periods. Day-to-day fighting has been left to Yemeni and
Somali soldiers.
Those missions have met with success — a U.S.
airstrike killed the leader of Somalia’s al-Shabab jihadist movement last week
— but both campaigns have dragged on for years and involve far smaller and
less-well-financed adversaries than the Islamic State. Although Obama promised
a “steady, relentless effort” in a nationally televised address Wednesday
night, he also said that “it will take time to eradicate a cancer like ISIL,”
using a common acronym for the Islamic State.
Such a mission was not the U.S. military’s
preferred option. Responding to a White House request for options to confront
the Islamic State, Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top commander of U.S. forces in the
Middle East, said that his best military advice was to send a modest contingent
of American troops, principally Special Operations forces, to advise and assist
Iraqi army units in fighting the militants, according to two U.S. military
officials. The recommendation, conveyed to the White House by Gen. Martin
Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was cast aside in favor of
options that did not involve U.S. ground forces in a front-line role, a step
adamantly opposed by the White House. Instead, Obama had decided to send an
additional 475 U.S. troops to assist Iraqi and ethnic Kurdish forces with training,
intelligence and equipment.
Recommitting ground combat forces to Iraq
would have been highly controversial, and most likely would have been opposed
by a substantial majority of Americans. But Austin’s predecessor, retired
Marine Gen. James Mattis, said the decision not to send ground troops poses
serious risks to the mission.
“The American people will once again see us in
a war that doesn’t seem to be making progress,” Mattis said. “You’re giving the
enemy the initiative for a longer period.”
Supporters of the president’s approach say
that the use of U.S. ground troops could easily send the wrong message to Iraqi
soldiers, encouraging them to hang back and allow the Americans to fight, and
it might discourage Iraq’s new government from moving quickly in efforts win
over Sunnis estranged by the previous prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. “We
cannot do for Iraqis what they must do for themselves, nor can we take the
place of Arab partners in securing their region,” Obama said.
U.S. military and diplomatic officials, even
those who favored a small number of ground troops, see a path, albeit rocky, to
wresting terrain from the militants in Iraq. If the new government of Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi acts inclusively — a key early test will be whom he
selects for the still-unfilled posts of defense minister and interior minister
— and his military leaders place competent generals in charge of the
reconstituted units dispatched to fight the militants, the Islamic State’s
territorial gains could be eroded.
It will almost certainly be a grueling fight.
Once U.S. airstrikes intensify and the Iraqi army gets back into the fight,
most likely augmented by Shiite militias, members of the Islamic State may go
covert, blending in with the local population and conducting insurgent-style
attacks on Iraqi troops.
U.S. and Iraqi leaders hope to peel away Sunni
tribesmen who have acquiesced to the militants — some of them had viewed the
Maliki government as worse for them than the Islamic State — a breakthrough
that could help the government’s drive to reclaim territory, but many tribesmen
remain wary of promises in exchange for cooperation from Washington and
Baghdad. U.S. commanders promised them jobs in the Iraqi security forces if
they fought against al-Qaeda’s Iraq affiliate in 2007 and 2008. They fought,
but Maliki eventually reneged on those commitments.
“This isn’t going to be as simple as rolling
up the highway to Mosul,”said a senior U.S. military official involved Middle
East strategy, referring to a large northern city that the militants quickly
captured as they surged into the country.
Even so, the prospect of the Iraqis retaking
major cities now held by the Islamic State is far less murky than the potential
outcome in Syria, which is embroiled in a four-way civil war: the Assad
government vs. the Islamic States vs. the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front
vs. the moderate but fledgling Free Syrian Army.
“Figuring out where we can strike ISIL so that
it weakens them and empowers a more moderate Sunni group instead of the
government — you have to think that one through,” said Michele Flournoy, a
former U.S. undersecretary of defense. “I’m not sure we know yet how to pull
that off.”
Although Obama has previously called for
Syria’s Assad to cede power, he did not repeat that call in his address on
Wednesday night, perhaps because Iraq’s campaign against the Islamic State is
likely to rely on assistance from neighboring Iran, which has long been a
supporter of Assad.
He said his request to Congress for additional
U.S. resources to train and equip Assad’s moderate opponents was aimed at
“pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis.”
Source: http://www.teaparty.org/report-obama-ruled-commanders-ground-troops-55025/
Original Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/
- See more at: http://www.teaparty.org/report-obama-ruled-commanders-ground-troops-55025/#sthash.0VzwtIqL.dpuf
Comments
Obama is following the Hitler playbook and is now at the part
when Hitler went mad and ordered troops to invade Russia…not a smart move. What’s it going to take before Congress
throws this bum out ? We are rearming
the enemy…again. Also, without spotters
on the ground, we won’t hit anything worth hitting. How do the Iraqi tribal leaders line up ? We
would be better off arming the Kurds and leaving the rest of Iraq to deal with
ISIS.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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