A hashtag and a hug isn’t working.
Via Defense One
For months warnings have sounded over the rising threat posed by extremists operating unimpeded in Syria. Now those fighters are cutting their way through Iraq and plunging the region into a sectarian bloodbath with consequences that would stretch well beyond the Middle East.
So exactly where do the ambitions of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL end? And can a United States entering an era of curbed enthusiasm for foreign interventions succeed in rallying the resources required to counter them?
For those who have long argued that America needed to weigh the costs of inaction in Syria and the very real risk of creating a bullpen for extremists in the country, the ISIL surge in Iraq is cause for very serious concern.
“This is a strategic development, not a tactical development, because this is a group that has lots of money and lots of arms and an image of success they are trading on right now,” former Ambassador Dennis Ross told Defense One. “Ultimately what they want to do is show how they are able to take us on. And so we will be drawn into this more and more inevitably because we will have to interrupt their ability to plan and operate lest they become a threat to us.”
For at least a year, voices within the administration have been pushing the White House to lend greater assistance to Syria’s rebels, arguing that the extremists would win out if moderates were starved for resources. The counter was that the U.S. could never be sure exactly whom it was backing and fears of weapons and resources landing in the wrong hands abounded. Today, one thing is certain: the swift ISIL entrance into Iraq surprised the Obama administration and many others in Washington.
Now, Ross and others say the time has come for the Obama administration to lead its allies by developing and articulating a plan with a clear strategy and a clear objective for addressing what is happening on the ground in the Middle East.
“We are protecting that which would allow us to have options,” said Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey at a Pentagon press conference on Thursday. Dempsey spoke extensively, trying to define a U.S. military mission that is restrained today but could expand to, he said, “direct action” in Iraq to meet a worsening security threat. Dempsey said Iraq alone could not win back Iraq from ISIL — “Probably not by themselves.”