As he offered to the nation his prescription for the most recent Middle East crisis, President Barack Obama reminded me of Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III. ‘‘Just when I thought I was out,” sighed the young mob boss about his efforts to leave the family business, “they pull me back in.”
President Obama’s showed similar reluctance in his 15-minute speech to outline his strategy to beat the jihadis known as the Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL. Elected on promises to pull the United States out of two wars, he shows little appetite for new ones. As he talked like a hawk, he could hardly keep his inner dove from showing.
He has tried to pivot away from the Middle East, even as an estimated 200,000 died in Syria’s civil war over the past three years and the upstart Islamic State rapidly grew and took over vast portions of Iraq and Syria.
It took Internet video of the cowardly and barbaric beheading of two American journalists to enrage and horrify Americans in ways that the largely unseen Syrian slaughter could not.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found 94 percent of Americans had heard news of the beheadings. A USA Today/Pew Research Center poll later in August found 54 percent of Americans thought Obama was “not tough enough.”
A recent Washington Post/ABC poll similarly found Obama’s approval rating on foreign affairs slipping to a new low of 37 percent among women, almost matching his 38 percent among men.
That might help to explain why, as the president announced his prescription for the Islamic State crisis, he looked like he’d much rather be someplace else.
Yes, President No-Drama has a strategy: “We will degrade, and ultimately destroy ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy,” he said. “This counter-terrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist.”
He will send airstrikes against Islamic State targets and send 475 more military advisers to join the 1,211 already in Iraq. He will increase assistance to Iraqi, Kurdish and Syrian opposition forces. He is building an alliance with other nations, including Saudi Arabia to train and equip forces against the Islamic State. Humanitarian aid will continue to help Syrian refugees and others displaced by the terrorist group.
In characteristic fashion, Obama tried to carve out a middle ground between the extremes of isolationism and President George W. Bush’s ambitiously sweeping “global war on terror.”
He vowed to “hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are,” and to “not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq.” He declared “a core principle” of his presidency to be “if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”
Yet his speech left a number of critical questions unanswered. Among them:
1. What’s the exit strategy? Vietnam sadly taught us the folly of starting a war without a clear vision of how to end it. Iraq and Afghanistan reinforced that lesson. How will we know when we have “won” against the Islamic State?
2. The sustained campaign against the Islamic State could take three years, unnamed senior Obama aides told The New York Times prior to the speech. That would land the endgame in the next president’s lap. Are Americans ready for such a long and gradual fight?
3. No “boots on the ground?” Really? Obama promised no U.S. combat troops would be placed on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria. But Republican Speaker John Boehner, who supported giving the president what he’s asking for, nevertheless remarked, “Well, somebody’s boots have to be on the ground.”
4. Will we become Syria’s new air force? Obama says we can help the Syrian opposition to fight the Islamic State, which is part of that opposition, without helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Good luck with that.
And how will Congress react? The issue hits as midterm elections loom, which is a bad time for serious debate. In the interest of unity against terrorism threats, lawmakers probably will give the president what he wants, at least for now.
But this campaign also raises tough questions about the next election and what voters want in their commander-in-chief: a hawkish dove or dovish hawk?
CLARENCE PAGE’s column is distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
