| New York Times | - |
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is debating a more robust intervention in Syria,
including possible American airstrikes, in a significant escalation of
its weeks-long military assault on the Islamic extremist group that has
destabilized ...
U.S. Military Strategy Against ISIS
A look at the next military steps the United States is considering in the battle against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Video Credit By Emily B. Hager and Quyn Do on
Publish Date August 21, 2014.
Image CreditHasan Jamali/Associated Press
WASHINGTON
— The Obama administration is debating a more robust intervention in
Syria, including possible American airstrikes, in a significant
escalation of its weeks-long military assault on the Islamic extremist
group that has destabilized neighboring Iraq and killed an American
journalist, officials said Friday.
While
President Obama has long resisted being drawn into Syria’s bloody civil
war, officials said recent advances by the Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria had made clear that it represents a threat to the interests of the
United States and its allies. The beheading of James Foley, the
American journalist, has contributed to what officials called a “new
context” for a challenge that has long divided the president’s team.
Officials
said the options include speeding up and intensifying limited American
efforts to train and arm moderate Syrian rebel forces that have been
fighting both ISIS as well as the government of President Bashar
al-Assad. Another option would be to bolster other partners on the
ground to take on ISIS, including the Syrian Kurds.
But
American officials said they would also take a look at airstrikes by
fighter jets and bombers as well as potentially sending Special
Operations forces into Syria, like those who tried to rescue Mr. Foley
and other hostages on a mission in July. One possibility officials have
discussed for Iraq that could be translated to Syria would be a series
of unmanned drone strikes targeting ISIS leaders, much like those
conducted in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.
Whether
Mr. Obama would actually authorize a new strategy remained unclear and
aides said he has not yet been presented with recommendations. The
president has long expressed skepticism that more assertive action by
the United States, including arming Syrian rebels as urged in 2011 by
Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the secretary of state, would change the
course of the civil war there. But he sent out a top adviser on Friday
to publicly hint at the possibility a day after the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff said ISIS could not be defeated without going
after it in Syria.
“If
you come after Americans, we’re going to come after you, wherever you
are,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security
adviser, told reporters in Martha’s Vineyard, where Mr. Obama is on a
much-interrupted vacation. “We’re actively considering what’s going to
be necessary to deal with that threat and we’re not going to be
restricted by borders.”
American
operations against ISIS in Syria would expand the scope and goals of
the military intervention Mr. Obama ordered in Iraq two weeks ago. At
the time, the president said he authorized airstrikes to defend American
personnel and prevent the genocide of religious minorities threatened
by ISIS.
But
he has also ordered strikes to help Iraq’s government reclaim control
of the vital Mosul Dam from ISIS. Sending American warplanes or drones
to cross the border into Syria would mean that he was now taking on the
mission of degrading or even crippling ISIS, which has established what
it calls an Islamic caliphate on a wide band of territory across the two
countries.
“Common
sense suggests you need to hit them in Syria,” said Steven Simon, a
former White House adviser to Mr. Obama on the Middle East. “Everyone
understands well enough that you can’t defeat an insurgency that has a
cross-border safe haven, so you have to do something.”
Critics
of the original Iraq intervention said escalating into Syria would
represent exactly the kind of mission creep they warned against.
“We’ve
seen this movie before and we know how it ends,” said Stephen Miles,
advocacy director of Win Without War, a national coalition formed to
oppose the 2003 invasion of Iraq ordered by President George W. Bush.
“Unfortunately, we see at the end of the day it’s almost always the case
that the extremists are emboldened. We play into their hands by giving
them what they want, which is a battle with the West.”
Interactive Graphic: A Rogue State Along Two Rivers
An
expanded intervention into Syria would represent a striking turnaround
for a president who has opposed such a move before, and some
administration officials therefore doubt that he will agree. From the
start of the Syrian civil war, Mr. Obama’s response has been marked by a
pattern of heightened public statements and indications of stepped-up
involvement, followed by far less action than suggested.
At
one point, Mr. Obama declared Mr. Assad had to “step aside” and at
another he laid down a “red line” against any use of chemical weapons.
But the president rejected the 2011 proposal backed by Mrs. Clinton to
arm and train small groups of vetted rebels, fearful that the weapons
could fall into the wrong hands.
Just
a year ago, he vowed to retaliate against Syria for using chemical
weapons on civilians, only to abruptly reverse himself and ask Congress
to decide whether to go forward. He then pivoted again to embrace a
Russian plan to remove Syria’s chemical weapons without taking military
action. The episode was widely seen as damaging Mr. Obama’s credibility,
but the joint Russian-American initiative recently finished destroying
all of Syria’s chemicals, achieving the goal the president set.
Mr.
Obama eventually approved a limited effort to arm and train vetted
rebels and this summer asked Congress for another $500 million to help,
but lawmakers are unlikely to act until next year and the flow of
current aid has been so tightly controlled that some rebel leaders have
said it seemed designed less to turn the tide of war than to keep them
alive — while creating an impression that the United States is helping.
As
recently as two weeks ago, Mr. Obama rejected the notion that arming
the rebels earlier would have made a difference, saying that has “always
been a fantasy.” He said the administration had difficulty finding,
training and arming a sufficient cadre of secular Syrians. “There’s not
as much capacity as you would hope,” he said.
What
is now under consideration would be a different goal: not to punish Mr.
Assad’s government or to further his ouster but to cripple ISIS. As it
happens, that would actually work in Mr. Assad’s favor, since ISIS has
been one of the most effective of the various factions fighting Syrian
government forces. But it might be more directly in the interest of the
United States, given the threat posed by an ISIS caliphate whose
brutality was captured in the video image of a masked man beheading Mr.
Foley.
“Given
what’s happened to Jim Foley, given the public profile that this ISIS
bunch has taken, I think it’s easier for the president, and for that
matter for members of Congress, to make the case to the public that the
United States really ought to be operating in the skies over Syria
against this particular group,” said Frederic Hof, a former Syria
adviser in Mr. Obama’s State Department.
American
officials had long worried about the dangers from Westerners fighting
in Syria, including about 100 Americans, returning home to carry out
attacks here. As of this spring, ISIS was viewed as an immediate threat
to the region and a potential threat to the continental United States.
But the intelligence community concluded that ISIS did not yet have the
capability to strike here.
In
recent months, however, concerns over ISIS’s capability to attack
American personnel and interests in the region have increased as the
group swept into northern Iraq. Fears of threats to the United States
itself have also increased, mainly because of reports of growing
collaboration between ISIS and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which
has the most sophisticated bombmaker in the militant world and a
demonstrated willingness to attack the United States.
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