Obama’s plan for Middle East no clearer
It’s nearly Labor Day in the US, which means a three day weekend, the last calendar-specific opportunity to fire up the BBQ, and create a marinade your American friends will discuss in unfavourable terms on the drive home.
If anyone expected to have detail on President Obama’s policy on the Islamic State to chew over, they were misinformed.
In a winding press conference late on Thursday, the President meandered over what comes next, for example, bombing targets in Syria, the IS safe haven? No, he says, that’s not going to happen anytime soon, despite media reports that “we’re about to go full scale on an elaborate strategy, the suggestion that we’ll start moving forward imminently, somehow with congress out of town.”
No strategy
The most noteworthy moment? When he admitted “we don’t have a strategy yet”, which is why there was no need to put anything before congress, or bring the American people into the debate. He didn’t want to put the cart in front of the horse.
Kind of strange, given that only a few days ago, his defence secretary described IS as “an enemy beyond anything we’ve seen.” There was no sense of urgency from the Commander in Chief.
All this is likely only to add to impatience for someone somewhere to come up with, and articulate a plan. Even Democrats in Congress and the Senate (which by the way isn’t back from holiday for a few weeks yet) want a greater sense of direction. Or even, a debate in congress. In a statement issued Thursday, Democrat Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, who’s on the Foreign Relations Committee, writes ‘if the President anticipates military involvement beyond our original limited objectives in Iraq or Syria, the Administration needs to outline its military objectives, and seek specific authorization before we enter a new war in the Middle East.’
Elections looming
That phrase – ‘a new war in the Middle East’ – is enough to freeze the blood of any popularly elected politician in the US. The Mid Term elections loom large (November 4th, mark it on your calendars), and no-one regardless of their political stripe wants to go before the electorate at this sensitive time, and have to answer tough questions on re-entering the theatre of war in Iraq and Syria. Unless, perhaps, you’re John McCain or Lindsey Graham, for whom greater engagement is always the best option.
There is a legal question over whether President Obama can do his executive thing, and simply extend to Syria the bombing campaign which has seen American fighter jets fly over a hundred bombing raids targeting Islamic State fighters and munitions in northern Iraq. But his very cautious words on Thursday renders all that fairly academic.
He spoke of limited engagement to protect civilian groups under threat, but articulated again that his main objective in Iraq is to keep Americans safe. For the longer term, the greater threat posed by the Islamic State will require a regional alliance, built around the government of Iraq itself. The US will play a role. It will not take the lead.
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