List of critics of the war against ISIS grows

The Washington Post’s editorial board joins the growing list of critics of the way the Obama Administration is waging their war against ISIS in their lead editorial this morning. Of course, I write “waging war” in the loosest sense of the term.

With the campaign against the Islamic State faltering, President Obama has agreed to dispatch 450 more U.S. troops to an Iraqi air base near the provincial capital of Ramadi, which the terrorists captured last month. The underlying logic of his policy, however, hasn’t changed. Rather than aiming to destroy the Islamic State, Mr. Obama is focused on limiting U.S. engagement. The result is an under-resourced effort that remains unlikely to succeed.

There’s a policy? I didn’t realize that. The only policy that I see is to appear as if the president is serious about engaging the thugs of ISIS without actually doing much to defeat them, but it’s like last year in Afghanistan where the focus wasn’t on defeating the Taliban, but rather on withdrawing US troops at the end of the year so the President could tell us that he had ended our participation in that war. Now there are ten thousand troops remaining in Afghanistan because the politicians lost their focus last year.

Without saying so, the Post admits that President Bush was right, strategy-wise, in Iraq;

Mr. Obama’s escalation nevertheless is most notable for excluding the steps that American and Iraqi commanders and military experts have been saying for a year are necessary to decisively reverse the Islamic State’s momentum. These include the deployment of U.S. advisers to front-line Iraqi units, along with spotters who can call in airstrikes, and an increase of close-in air support.

Such tactics worked during the U.S. “surge” in Iraq, and they allowed Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban government in 2001-2002. That they are not being used now, despite the Islamic State’s recent gains, seems to be explained only by Mr. Obama’s political resistance to reversing his decision to withdraw U.S. forces four years ago.

The concept of “limited warfare” has been disproved as ineffective as far back as the war against Mexico in 1846. But, politicians think that they can manage warfare from a distance for short-term political gains. It only ends up costing the lives of the folks who fight those wars. Thus far, this administration has been lucky in that regard.

I disagree that US troops need to accompany Iraqi forces into combat, that probably won’t end well for at least some of those US troops. The story of Dakota Meyers in Afghanistan comes to mind, where some US advisers accompanied Afghan forces into a box canyon trap against their better judgement.

The incrementalism of [President Obama’s] approach, with small and isolated steps taken too late, cannot change the momentum of the war. The Islamic State continues to attract thousands of recruits and to inspire new affiliates abroad because of the widespread perception that it is holding the United States at bay.

You defeat the extremists in ISIS with an outward appearance of overall strength and huge, resounding, indisputable victories. The US looks impotent in Iraq and unable to win. Until this administration can form the word “victory” in their collective mouth, it will elude them.

Category: Terror War