Dealing over the weekend with the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris killing 129 and injuring hundreds more, President Barack Obama showed weak American leadership in an era of global terrorism. Offering proper sympathies is no substitute for strong leadership in the war on terror. Responding to a growing threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], Obama stepped up a U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria in 2014. One day before the Paris attacks, Obama told the press ISIS was “contained,” referring to its land grab in Iraq and Syria. Yet its global reach downed a Russian commercial airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula Oct. 31, striking Paris in six separate attacks. Obama told delegates at the G20 that U.S. ISIS policy would take time to work. Unwilling to wait, French President Francoise Hollande told a joint session parliament Nov. 15 France was at war with ISIS.
Obama’s sluggish response prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to step up its bombing campaign against ISIS in its de facto capital of Raqqa. While ordering 50 Special Forces to Syria Oct. 30, it’s clear to almost everyone that Obama’s strategy hasn’t “contained” ISIS or reduced its global threat. Admitting that a bomb brought down Russian Metroject over Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh Oct. 31, Putin wasted no time stepping up air strikes against ISIS. “We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them,” Putin told the Kremlin today. Joining France going after ISIS in Raqqa, Putin embarrassed the White House for acting so indecisively. Whatever the current U.S. bombing campaign, it’s not hitting the same targets as France and Russia. Unlike Obama, Putin showed that if something needs to get done, it’s possible to act decisively, not tie the Pentagon’s hands.
Putin has pleaded with Obama to change his Syria policy, to stop joining ISIS and al-Qaeda in seeking regime change in Damascus. White House officials can’t explain—other than Obama’s poor relationship with Putin—why the U.S. would be on the same side of the conflict as ISIS and al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra Front. Since Putin started bombing select targets in Syria, the White House only whined about Russia hitting anti-Assad Sunni insurgent groups. While acknowledging the intolerable humanitarian crisis in Syria, Obama hasn’t shifted gears to join with Russia and Iran, and now France, to eject ISIS from its safe havens in Iraq and Syria. Few, if any, Mideast experts think Obama’s current air campaign can evict ISIS from one inch of Iraq and Syria sovereign land seized during its 2014 blitzkrieg. Taking over large swaths of Iraq and Syria gave ISIS’s global recruitment efforts more clout.
Slowly seeing the big picture, Obama’s still caught between old campaign promises to end wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, preventing him from facing today’s new reality. If Russia can join France in going after ISIS, certainly the White House can shift gears and figure out what must be done to eject ISIS from key Iraqi and Syrian, villages, towns and cities. “The strategy that we are putting forward is the strategy that ultimately is going to work,” Obama told the G20, making zero sense. If a consensus of military experts believes that an air campaign can’t evict ISIS from Iraq and Syria, then something must change. Putting U.S. credibility on the line, Obama revealed his weak Mideast policy. Whether or not he’s tied the Pentagon’s hands with unrealistic “rules of engagement “ is anyone’s guess. What’s known now is that ISIS has become an implacable global threat
Speaking at G20, Obama exposed his reluctance to put U.S. troops in harm’s way. “Some of those people I’ve ordered into battle,” he confessed, reluctant to the U.S. to become a permanent occupation force. “What happens when there’s a terrosit attack generated from Yemen?” asked Barack. “Do we then send more troops into there?’ showing his ambivalence about using U.S. military power. When France says it’s at war, a close ally should ask not hypotheticals but about what can be done to stop the barbarism that’s washed up on Europe’s shores. Obama’s personal doubts should be kept to himself, not shared with the G20. France was attacked by ISIS and the U.S. must do more to help its key ally. If Russia can start bombing key targets in Raqqa, certainly the U.S. can do more to reverse ISIS’s global reach. Following the old policy gets the same old results.
Attacks in Paris proved that ISIS has become a menace outside the Mideast where it routinely brainwashes and recruits wayward youth into its suicide death cult. However ISIS or other extremists groups exploit Islam, they follow their perversions justify beheadings and mass murder. Hitting Paris should be a wake-up call for the White House that Islamic terrorism has already washed up on U.S. streets, promising, as CIA Director John Brennan said Nov. 16, to only get worse. Obama needs to get over former President George W. Bush’s mistakes and respond to current threats to protect the U.S. homeland. If changing strategy requires joining forces with Russia and Iran, then the White House should rethink its Iraq and Syria policy. No one wants casualties or a protracted war but whatever must be done to end ISIS’s reign of terror, Obama must act as commander-in-chief for whatever time he has left.
