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Obama Is Getting Slammed For His 'Goldilocks Approach' To ISIS And Syria
By Brett LoGiurato
27 minutes ago
The US military has begun the process of vetting moderate factions of rebels in Syria.
But President Barack Obama has been reluctant to commit the US military to help those nationalist Syrian forces in their fight against the regime of Syrian President Bashar-al Assad, as he is wary of getting US forces too involved in Syria's civil war.
Experts and even some in the
administration have started to hint at serious flaws in Obama's strategy
to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS, also known as ISIL or the
Islamic State. For instance, the administration plans to only train the
rebels to defend territory — not go on the offensive — something that
could provide an unintentional boost to Assad regime forces.
Gen. John Allen, the president's special envoy to the coalition fighting ISIS, also said
this weekend that the US doesn't believe the rebels it trains will go
on to fight forces backing Assad. Instead, he said the administration
hopes to build up the moderate rebels enough that they will " become the
credible force that the Assad government ultimately has to acknowledge
and recognize."The policy has befuddled Middle East analysts and experts, many of whom have blamed Assad for intentionally fueling ISIS' rise to create a jihadist vacuum.
"The only course of action that
makes sense to me is to try to build a Syrian force capable of
defeating any combination of enemies in the course of stabilizing
Syria," Fred Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri
Center for the Middle East and a former special advisor for transition
in Syria at the U.S. Department of State, told Business Insider.
"If the creation and deploying of this force persuades or compels
the Assad regime to engage in genuine political negotiations, fine. A
Goldilocks approach of trying to recruit and build a force just good
enough to beat ISIL but not quite good enough to the beat the regime
simply won't work."The key limitation of the coalition's strategy has long been a general unwillingness to become more involved in Syria's still-deepening, three-plus-year long civil war.
The administration's policy has frustrated the forces with which it is planning to partner in Syria. Because as the US has stepped up its campaign to rescue the beleaguered town of Kobani from the hands of ISIS, Assad has continued his barrel-bombing campaign in other, rebel-held areas of Syria.
Assad has used the breathing
room allotted by the focus on ISIS to intensify his bombing campaign
against Free Syrian Army-held territory, including a campaign of " 200 air force strikes
"' in 36 hours in recent days. One of the unknowns of the strategy
could be potentially disastrous — by the time Syrian rebels are vetted
and trained by late 2015 at the earliest, they may not have much
territory to defend.
@Arabthomness The situation in Syria as of October 5.
"Designing such a force would be problematical and frankly I do not know of any Syrian nationalist opponents of the regime and ISIL who would be attracted to the lop-sided proposition as described," Hof told Business Insider. "Syrians have, after all, suffered much more from Assad than they have from ISIL to date. As we try to square the circle of a purely American policy debate we'll have to keep in mind that Syrians will have a vote."
The Washington Post editorial board criticized Obama's "half-hearted" strategy against ISIS, citing "major weaknesses" including a "de facto neutral stance" that has allowed Assad to step up his campaign against the FSA forces on whom the US is counting to be the ground force that helps defeat ISIS.
The editorial board also
pointed to the consequences of inaction with allies — Turkey, an
important partner because of its border, has been reluctant to engage militarily without a commitment from the US to oust Assad. Iraq's new government recently appointed
a Shiite Iranian-affiliated interior minister. And some Sunni tribes —
whose support is key against the Sunni militants of ISIS — are striking deals with the extremist group rather than join the US coalition.
"The United States will have to
broaden its aims and increase its military commitment if the terrorists
are to be defeated," the editorial board wrote. "At the least, Syrian
rebel forces must be protected from attacks by the Assad regime and both
Syrian and Iraqi units provided with U.S. advisers and air controllers.
The longer Mr. Obama delays such steps, the greater the risk to vital
U.S. interests."
But given domestic political constraints of sending US troops to
fight in Iraq and Syria and varying allied support, other analysts
believe the Obama administration's policy — Goldilocks as it may be —
might be the best option.
"Support for US boots on the
ground is limited and would quickly grow into opposition over time and
given casualties," Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, recently
told Business Insider. "And if you’re not planning on an actual
substantial ground force, you’re left with a strategy that’s part
pushback (where you have workable ground forces — for now, the Kurds in
Iraq), part containment (west Iraq and Syria).
"So if you’re asking is [the]
present Obama strategy going to defeat ISIS — the answer is no. If
you’re asking is there realistically a better, more workable strategy
out there — the answer is also no."
More From Business Insider
- US Airstrikes Just Destroyed An ISIS 'Command Node' In Syria
- Ex-Administration Official Sums Up The Obama Administration's Insularity In One Brutal Sentence
- Obama Is Getting Slammed For His 'Goldilocks Approach' To ISIS And Syria
I think there is much more to this than what we are talking about here.
For example, we are in a Cold War with Putin and possibly China too. Both Russia and China aren't doing very well economically. Russia is doing worse. The complexity of the world war dynamics (Cold War) that is going on really amazes me. In this war it is not politically correct to even acknowledge that a Cold War is going on. IT's all that secret which to me is sort of maddening.
How can the people of the world actually know what is going on if no one will even talk about it publicly.
It is like the world is generally left out of the loop. For example, Obama isn't trying to actually win a war against ISIS because it really isn't Obama's or Europe's fight. The fight is actually between Shias and Sunnis and Shias will lose unless Iran gets nuclear weapons soon to threaten the Sunnis with.
Maybe this is the issue. Iran cannot fight the Sunnis through ISIS unless it has a nuke.
Here are the statistics:
How many Shia are there in the world?
Many people mistakenly think that Muslims are divided into two halves: Sunnis and Shi'it. In reality Shia are between 7.5% to 11%. All the rest (93.5%) are Sunnis (ignoring the fact the Shi'ism is a totally different religion than Islam). The word Shia includes all kinds of Shi'it Sects such as (Twelvers Imami Rafidi Shia, Isma'ili Shia, Alawi (Nusairi) Shia, Druze Shia, Zaidi Shia).The first statistic was all taken from the British Encyclopedia for the year 1997. However, we feel that it has some incorrect numbers for some countries such as Iran. Their number is compared to the total number of Muslims which is 1,482,596,925
| Country Name | Total Population | Percentage of Shia | Number of Shia | Sect |
| Afghanistan | 22,664,136 | 15% | 3,399,620 | Imami |
| Azerbaijan | 7,676,953 | 75% | 5,757,715 | Imami |
| Bahrain | 590,042 | 61.3% | 361,696 | Imami |
| India | 952,107,694 | 3% | 28,563,231 | Isma'ili, Imami |
| Iran | 66,094,264 | 93.4% | 61,732,043 | Imami |
| Iraq | 21,422,292 | 62.5% | 13,388,933 | Imami |
| Kuwait | 1,950,047 | 30% | 585,014 | Imami |
| Lebanon | 3,776,317 | 41% | 1,548,290 | Imami, Druze |
| Oman | 2,186,548 | 2% | 43,731 | Imami |
| Pakistan | 129,275,660 | 20% | 25,855,132 | Imami |
| Qatar | 547,761 | 5% | 27,388 | Imami |
| Saudi Arabia | 19,409,058 | 3.3% | 640,499 | Imami |
| Syria | 15,608,648 | 15.3% | 2,388,123 | Nusairi, Druze |
| Turkey | 62,484,478 | 20% | 12,496,896 | Nusairi |
| United Arab Emirates | 3,057,337 | 16% | 489,174 | Imami |
| Yemen | 13,483,178 | 46.9% | 6,323,610 | Zaidi |
| Total | 11.0% | 163,601,094 |
This statistic was all taken from many independent sources for the year 1999. It is more accurate than the previous one. It is important to remember that Shia have a high birth rate since their religion allows adultery (Mut'a). The percentage of Shia this time is relative to the percentage of Muslims.
| Country Name | Total Population | Percentage of Muslims | Number of Muslims | Percentage of Shia to Muslims | Number of Shia |
| Afghanistan | 22,664,136 | 100 | 22,664,136 | 15 | 3,399,620 |
| Azerbaijan | 7,676,953 | 93.4 | 7,170,274 | 80 | 5,736,219 |
| Bahrain | 590,042 | 100 | 590,042 | 65 | 383,527 |
| India | 952,107,694 | 14 | 133,295,077 | 10 - 2 | 13,329,507 |
| Iran | 66,094,264 | 99 | 65,433,321 | 70 | 45,803,324 |
| Iraq | 21,422,292 | 97 | 20,779,623 | 65 - 30 | 13,506,755 |
| Kuwait | 1,950,047 | 89 | 1,735,542 | 30 | 520,662 |
| Lebanon | 3,776,317 | 70 | 2,643,422 | 65 | 1,718,224 |
| Oman | 2,186,548 | 100 | 382,000 | 2 | 7,640 |
| Pakistan | 129,275,660 | 97 | 125,397,390 | 15 - 2 | 18,809,608 |
| Qatar | 547,761 | 100 | 547,761 | 15 | 82,164 |
| Saudi Arabia | 19,409,058 | 100 | 19,409,058 | 5 | 970,452 |
| Syria | 15,608,648 | 90 | 14,047,783 | 15 - 9 | 2,107,167 |
| Turkey | 62,484,478 | 99.8 | 62,359,509 | 6 | 3,741,570 |
| United Arab Emirates | 3,057,337 | 96 | 2,935,044 | 15 | 440,256 |
| Yemen | 13,483,178 | 99 | 13,348,346 | 15 | 2,002,251 |
Total
|
7.58% | 112,558,954 |
http://www.islamicweb.com/beliefs/cults/shia_population.htm
However, there are 1.1 billion Sunnis. So, the only real way for Shias to win this in the end over ISIS like groups is for Iran to get a nuclear weapon.
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