President’s “Critics” Don’t Have an Islamic State Strategy
Clip from Islamic State promotional video, 8/26/14
Since President Obama outlined his plan to confront the Islamic State last Wednesday, critics have pounced on the proposal. Though the President’s strategy has many shortcomings, some of which NSN addressed last week, many of the President’s critics have in fact agreed with the principles of the plan – but then claimed differently. These critics have yet to articulate a credible alternative to the Administration’s stated plan to provide training, assistance, and air support to partner forces on the ground, while also bolstering the legitimacy of the Iraqi government and undermining the Islamic State’s shadow economy. The lack of seriousness from the President’s critics is hardly surprising – many of them also still inflate the threat posed by the Islamic State and fail to engage in a fact-based discussion of the options available to meet the threat posed by the organization. It is now up to Congress to play a constructive role in forming the U.S. strategy to confront the Islamic State by engaging in a responsible debate about the potential Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq and Syria.
Politicians continue to inflate the threat posed by the Islamic State rather than debate the proposed strategy in a careful, fact-based manner. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was particularly hyperbolic in his comments this weekend, claiming that the Islamic State poses an existential threat to the United States. “This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed here at home,” Graham said. “This is the last best chance….They will open the gates of Hell to spill out on the world.” Graham’s comments, among others, come despite numerous press reports, editorials and commentary pieces, and speeches that have stated the intelligence community and other experts’ assessment that the Islamic State is not actively planning to strike the U.S. homeland and remains first and foremost a regional threat. Daniel Benjamin, former State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, noted this weekend that he thinks “the threat has been exaggerated a bit domestically” and that he worries that this distortion is influencing the debate over the U.S. role in confronting the Islamic State. “We have a bad history of thinking it’s all about us,” Benjamin said on Sunday, “as we did in Vietnam, as we did in thinking that Saddam Hussein was going to be a threat to us when he was trying to keep his own people cowed and subservient.” [Lindsey Graham and Daniel Benjamin via Washington Post, 9/14/14]
Critics of the President’s plan have yet to propose a credible alternative. Despite the political grandstanding of former Vice President Dick Cheney and Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), who gave headline-grabbing speeches last Wednesday and Thursday, neither was able to articulate a credible alternative. In fact, on many points – the need for a regional coalition and immediate military action, including limited numbers of U.S. military trainers and Special Forces – they concurred with the President’s strategy but framed their remarks as disagreement. Some critics of the proposed strategy have called for the introduction of U.S. combat troops, and a new report by the Institute for the Study of War written by Iraq war strategists Kimberly and Frederick Kagan has gone so far as to encourage the deployment of 25,000 U.S. troops to fight the Islamic State. Not only is this politically unfeasible – Americans have demonstrated little interest in recommitting U.S. troops to the fight in Iraq and Congress is already ambivalent about the proposed strategy – it is unclear that an overly-optimistic attempt to recreate the success of the 2007 troop surge would work today. The authors note that the “risks inherent in the actions proposed…are very high and difficult to mitigate;” they outline a scenario that could bring the United States into open conflict with Iranian troops. A strategy that runs the risk of miring the United States in the middle of an even wider regional conflagration is not a strategy anyone should take seriously. [Dick Cheney, 9/10/14. Buck McKeon, 9/11/14. Kimberly Kagan, Frederick W. Kagan, and Jessica D. Lewis, 9/14]
Congress must now take care in how it proceeds: It should responsibly debate an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), but should not use the current debate as an excuse to increase Pentagon spending:
Congress has a responsibility to thoroughly consider an Authorization for Use of Military Force to implement the President’s proposed strategy, including the potential hazards. As of last week, a senior administration official told reporters that military action against the Islamic State is justified under the 2001 AUMF, as the organization is an al-Qaeda affiliated force. However, as NSN has pointed out, the Islamic State does not fall under the legal terms of the 2001 AUMF. The organization did not exist in 2001 and is not affiliated with al-Qaeda. Congress now has a responsibility to discuss the potential for a new AUMF to support the President’s proposed strategy against the Islamic State.
In a positive move towards working responsibly with the Administration against the Islamic State, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) showed support for the President’s proposed strategy following the President’s speech last week. Boehner told reporters that the President “made a compelling case for action” against the Islamic State, and that “We are doing our due diligence with all our members…we stand ready to work with the president.” Congress must now thoroughly debate the proposed strategy’s merits and hazards in a spirit of constructive cooperation. [John Boehner via NPR, 9/11/14]
Countering the Islamic State does not require modifying Pentagon budget caps. The President’s campaign against the Islamic State has revived debate over the Budget Control Act (BCA) caps on Department of Defense spending. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said last Friday, “If we don’t replace the cuts in sequestration, we’re going to compromise our ability to be successful against [the Islamic State] and other emerging threats,” and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) shared similar views, saying, “I know that if we don’t, we will cripple the United States’ ability to defend this nation.… That isn’t my view — that’s [the view] of every military leader I know.” However, while some lawmakers see the fight against the Islamic State as a rallying point to raise the BCA caps, budget experts such as Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, point out, “The reality is they don’t need to modify the budget caps to do this… The budget caps don’t actually constrain what we’re talking about doing in Iraq and Syria” because those operations are paid for by Overseas Contingency Operations funding (OCO), which is not subject to BCA caps. Moreover, the costs of operations thus far against the Islamic State have been minimal, only “$7.5 million per day since June 16,” reports Inside Defense – a sliver of the total nearly $60 billion dollar OCO request submitted by the Pentagon for FY2015. Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman adds, “We believe that we can meet all our current requirements right now with FY-14 [overseas contingency operations funding].” [Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Todd Harrison via Politico, 9/12/14. Inside Defense and Steve Warren via Inside Defense, 9/10/14]
