Iraq

6 Key Takeaways on Confronting the Islamic State February 18, 2015 Today, the Obama Administration is convening a summit on countering violent extremism. Representatives from more than 60 countries are meeting to discuss ways to prevent radicalization and terrorism. The summit illustrates that fighting terrorist groups like the Islamic State is about more than military strategy in Iraq and Syria. As Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.) notes in NSN’s new report, Confronting the Islamic State: An Assessment of U.S. Strategic Options, “the choices facing policymakers are characterized by problems far more complex than fine-tuning a military strategy and the question of boots or no boots on the ground. Counter-ideology, diplomacy, economics, and politics at home and abroad all play a role.”  Nonetheless, most current strategic… Read More ›

Confronting the Islamic State: An Assessment of U.S. Strategic Options Policy Report by J. Dana Stuster and Bill French Foreword by Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, USA (Ret.) February 2015 The National Security Network (NSN) is pleased to release a new policy report,Confronting the Islamic State: An Assessment of U.S. Strategic Options. The report, which features a foreword by NSN Senior Advisor Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), reframes the debate on U.S. strategy in Iraq and Syria. NSN Policy Analysts Dana Stuster and Bill French analyze the full field of strategies to counter the Islamic State proposed by experts and outline a new approach to combat it. To read the full report, click here.  Confronting the Islamic State categorizes the various strategic proposals into four camps: those… Read More ›

Obama’s ISIL AUMF: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly This morning, the White House sent Congress the text of its proposed Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the Islamic State. The proposed legislation includes strengths and weaknesses that deserve careful analysis and debate. Overall, the proposal would set important, if imperfect, limits on the war against the Islamic State, including: a three-year sunset clause, a careful definition of associated forces, and the repeal of the 2002 AUMF. But the proposal also includes a number of significant problems, including: a faux prohibition on large-scale ground combat operations that is effectively meaningless because of extremely poor wording, a lack of geographic limits, the potential application to ill-defined future “successors” of the Islamic State, and… Read More ›

Islamic State: US facing long war to retake Iraqi territory and defeat Islamist insurgents By Michael Vincent January 12, 2015 | 7 News The messaging from the Obama administration has been mixed. The president has said he is not Iraq’s air force. But, for now, he clearly is. So far the US Congress is backing him, budgeting $US5 billion for the air strikes and army training over the next nine months. US secretary of state John Kerry clearly expects a concerted ground campaign against Islamic State soon. He told a Washington DC forum on Mid East relations on December 7 that “Iraq’s national army is preparing to launch a counter-offensive. And we are confident that they will do so when the time is right, not… Read More ›

“Strategic Patience” – Not Expansion – Needed in Fight Against Islamic State The Islamic State has murdered a third U.S. hostage – on Sunday, militants released a video announcing it had beheaded Peter Kassig, an American aid worker and convert to Islam who adopted the name Abdul-Rahman. The video has emerged days after reports that the Obama Administration is reassessing its strategy in Iraq and Syria and considering an expansion of the U.S. intervention. This would be premature, with possibly damaging effects for the United States’ long-term effort. The current strategy is beginning to show progress, with U.S. assistance allowing local forces to halt the Islamic State’s spread and prepare a counteroffensive. Some analysts see evidence of the Islamic State’s recent defeats in the video,… Read More ›

Carefully Considering an Islamic State AUMF Today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is holding a closed hearing on the war in Iraq and Syria, to be followed tomorrow by a House Armed Services Committee hearing on U.S. war strategy. These hearings come on the heels of the Administration committing to seek a new, specific Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) for the war against the Islamic State. Many questions remain about the Administration’s legal strategy, and officials have hinted at a long-term plan that would replace the 2001 AUMF and the potential Islamic State AUMF it is now pursuing with a single overarching authorization. In the near-term, though, there are a number of issues specific to an Islamic State authorization that merit close attention.… Read More ›

We Need a New AUMF By John Bradshaw, Executive Director of the National Security Network October 08, 2014 | The Hill As military action expands against the Islamic State, legislative proposals for authorizing the use of military force are proliferating on Capitol Hill. While there is no consensus on how Congress should approach an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF), most of the proposals demonstrate that lessons have been learned since passage of the open-ended 2001 AUMF.  The proposed language is generally cautious about giving the president unrestricted authority and includes constraints such as geographic limitations, prohibitions on ground troops, and sunset clauses.  All of the proposals circulating so far, though, fail to include a component that will be essential to preventing the… Read More ›

September 18, 2014 | Lawfare At the National Security Network, Bill French and J. Dana Stuster released a policy brief entitled, “Navigating an AUMF for the Islamic State: Toward a High-Standard Authorization.” They offer the following advice for constructing a new AUMF: “First, Congress should ensure that the Administration meets its burden of justifying an escalation of conflict and demonstrates the soundness of its developing, but incomplete, strategy…Second, if the Administration can meet its burden, any AUMF against the Islamic State should be constructed to take into account American interests relevant to the appropriate scope of the conflict.” To read more, click here. To read the Policy Brief, click here.   Read More ›

A White House Position That Stands on a Narrow Definition of War By Mark Landler September 18, 2014 | New York Times The American advisers are armed, and if they are shot at by the enemy, they are authorized to return fire. In a close combat advisory role in a city, experts said, the American troops would tell Iraqi commanders which house to hit, how much ammunition to use in an assault, and how to organize medical evacuation for their troops. It is not the first time the United States has gotten tangled in semantics on this issue. In late 2008, before Mr. Obama was inaugurated, the Pentagon adopted a similarly narrow definition of combat to claim it was meeting a deadline for withdrawing combat… Read More ›

Washington Leads with Militarized Responses September 17, 2014 | Project on Defense Alternatives Budget Effects Proponents of increasing the DoD budget have been busy ‘making hay’ from the ISIS and Putin threats.  The National Security Network has a good summary of why new military activities in the Middle East do not require additional defense spending: “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… Read More ›