Syria

U.S. Strategy Against ISIS May 28, 2015 | C-SPAN John Bradshaw and Michael Doran talked about the current U.S. strategy in the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. To watch the original, click here. Read More ›

Retired General Visits Cincinnati, Talks ISIS Huy Nguyen April 8, 2014 | The News Record As the global ISIS threat continues, Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton arrived in Cincinnati April 1 to address how exactly ISIS began and what America can do to stop it. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh, continues to rampage through the Middle East, dismantling families and government institutions. Within four months after its rise in June of 2014, ISIS had murdered over 5,500 people, according to Newsweek. Just this Tuesday, it was discovered that a mass grave in Tikrit exceeded 3,000 victims, Newsweek reported. Eaton attended a dinner in Xavier University’s Conaton Board Room led by the Foreign Policy Leadership Council in… Read More ›

A Dangerously Confused AUMF Discussion in Congress as Escalation Looms March 13, 2015 Earlier this week, top officials appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss the Obama Administration’s proposed authorization for use of military force (AUMF) against the Islamic State. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey took part in a conversation that highlighted several areas of concern for which additional focus is warranted going forward. In particular, the hearing added confusion to the proposed definition of “associated forces” and how it is currently interpreted or could be interpreted in the future. The hearing also confirmed the proposed language that would prohibit “enduring offensive ground combat operations” lacks significant meaning.… Read More ›

Statement by Bill French, NSN Policy Analyst Congressional Progressive Caucus Forum on ISIL and the President’s AUMF Proposal March 16, 2015 Distinguished members of Congress, I am honored to join you to discuss the president’s proposed authorization for use of military force (AUMF) against ISIL. Over the next few minutes, I would like to outline how a number of key national security issues relate to considering the president’s proposed resolution and what kind of provisions it should – and should not – ultimately include as a result. In particular, I will focus on select aspects of how the U.S. military strategy against ISIL should inform congressional action on a potential AUMF. As I think all of us know, ISIL poses a very real national security… Read More ›

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 ›

Top of the Agenda, Jordanian Fighter Pilot Captured by Islamic State December 24, 2014 | Council on Foreign Relations A Jordanian fighter pilot crashed while flying a mission over northern Syria (BBC) and has been captured by Islamic State militants, the government of Jordan confirmed on Wednesday. It is the first coalition aircraft to be lost in ISIS territory since the beginning of the air campaign in September, and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims that ISIS used an anti-aircraft missile (NYT) to down the plane. Analysis “Immersing the United States deeper in Syria’s civil war was a bad idea three years ago, it was a bad idea in August, and it’s a bad idea today. America has one vital interest in Syria: preventing the Islamic State from staging… Read More ›

US ‘Better Off’ Negotiating Syrian Peace Talks With Russia: Major General December 13, 2014 | Sputnik International “The US administration should use every opportunity to negotiate a Syrian peace deal with Russia, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton has told Sputnik. ‘Any opportunity that you can sit down and talk, and negotiate with your friends or opponents, the better off we are,’ Eaton said Friday when asked whether the Obama administration should take up the recent Russian offer to relaunch talks to settle the conflict in Syria. ‘Any opportunity you can to sit down with Russian negotiators should be taken [because] the outcome can always be a negotiated result,’ Eaton stressed, saying ‘it is better to jaw-jaw, than to war-war’, referring to a quote by former British prime minister Winston Churchill. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said on Wednesday that if Syrian officials wanted to meet in Moscow, he would discuss the issue… Read More ›

The Costs of Losing Strategic Patience in Syria By Dana Stuster, Policy Analyst at the National Security Network November 22, 2014 | Real Clear World After three years of strategic ambivalence followed by three months of strategic shift, President Barack Obama may be considering another change in strategy for Syria. He’s convening a team to assess the administration’s current plans, CNN reported on Wednesday night. That team may consider accelerating and expanding U.S. assistance to Syrian opposition groups and targeting Assad regime forces. Consistently reassessing strategy is good policy, and the administration is right to take a hard look at its plans for Iraq and Syria. But immersing the United States deeper into Syria’s civil war was a bad idea three years ago, it was… Read More ›