The challenges facing President Obama’s coalition

The challenges facing President Obama’s coalition

9-16-14

From Jeddah to Paris and next the United Nations, Secretary of State John Kerry is on the stump these days, trying to build a coalition against the Islamic State much as President George H.W. Bush built one against Saddam Hussein after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. An entire generation has passed since that first Gulf War, making any analogy suspect. But to go back and look is also revealing of how the world has changed in 24 years and all the new challenges that poses for Kerry and President Barack Obama. Today’s U.S. military is weary from a decade of war. Bush had one fresh from the 1980’s buildup under Ronald Reagan. U.S relations with Russia are strained now by Vladimir Putin’s aggressiveness in the Ukraine. Bush enjoyed a period of unusual cooperation with Moscow and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev—a relationship which greatly helped when Washington went before the UN Security Council seeking authority to act against Iraq. Most important, perhaps, the 1990-1991 Gulf crisis began as an almost classical conflict: one state invading a second and then threatening the oil fields of a third, Saudi Arabia. An international framework was in place which Bush upheld. And despite the criticism he later faced, Bush stuck with his promise that the U.S. would use its military power to restore these borders—not seize the chance to go all the way to Baghdad and force regime change. The fact that Bush’s son, President George W. Bush, did invade and topple the government in 2003 dramatically changed the landscape. With its self-proclaimed caliphate, the Islamic State or ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] seeks to redefine the whole concept of borders. And after years of internal conflict, Iraq and Syria are so fractured that they struggle themselves to qualify as viable governments or states. In the case of Bush and the first Gulf War, “the objective was clear-cut and finite,” argues Thomas Lippman, an adjunct scholar at the non-profit Middle East Institute In Washington. “And the countries that were asked to sign on could see that the United States was fully committed to do the heavy lifting: there were half a million American troops in Saudi Arabia, awaiting the signal to begin operations.” “The situation confronting Obama and … Kerry is considerably murkier,” Lippman writes in an analysis posted Monday on MEI’s website. “The United States is not just herding cats, it is herding wolves, rabbits, chameleons, and maybe a few sheep.” “Obama and Kerry are asking other countries to join the United States in an effort to destroy a group of armed rebels who are not invaders, but mostly indigenous to Iraq and Syria,” Lippman continues. “The mission is open-ended. The United States is not prepared to send any ground troops, let alone half a million.” One constant in both crises is Saudi Arabia. It is a crucial partner in the new Obama-Kerry coalition just as it was a provided billions for Bush to cover the cost of U.S. military operations against Iraq. But even here there is a change in tone. Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s role in today’s crisis has less to do with its identity as a state per se and more what it represents for the Sunni peoples –across all borders in the Mideast. By providing a base for the training of indigenous Syrian forces, the Saudis help take some of the pressure off Jordan, which lives in closer proximity to ISIL and has borne the brunt of the refugee crisis in the region. And the administration hopes that by having a Sunni nation host the training of Syrian opposition recruits, it can draw more fighters from the eastern side of Syria and give some reassurance to Iraqi Sunnis— distrustful of their own Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad. Matched against these influences— which make Kerry’s job harder— are two which may help. One is the wholesale change in world markets since 1990 as nations like China and Russia have become much more intertwined with the world economy and more sensitive to any instability or religious nationalism that threatens their mercantile interests. Second, if the first Gulf War captured an old order, the current crisis reflects a new norm in which all states –post 9/11—have a greater common interest in standing up to trans-national terrorism. “It tells you a lot that the Chinese are sympathetic,” said James Steinberg, dean of the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, referencing reports after National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s visit to Beijing last week. And at a meeting in Paris Monday, Russia joined with 25 other nations in support of the Iraq government’s battle with ISIL. None of this diminishes the very real friction over the next steps. Kerry is sure to face questions Wednesday afternoon when he testifies before his old haunts at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And on Friday, he will chair a meeting of the UN security council on the newly-formed government in Iraq and its battle against ISIL. Obama is scheduled to speak to the UN general assembly next week and will also chair a special meeting of the security council on the threat of foreign terrorist fighters. More can be gleaned then as to the international reaction to Obama’s posture. But even as it signed Monday, Russia warned that it would object if the U.S. were to mount aerial attacks against ISIL inside Syria without first coordinating with Putin’s ally, Syrian President Basher al-Assad. There was also no disguising the Sunni-Shiite state tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which was not part of the Paris meeting but is perhaps best positioned to strike hard at ISIL. And the state media from Tehran later carried remarks by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei deriding Kerry’s efforts. Obama’s own rhetoric can be a problem too if he sets goals that go beyond what the coalition is capable of reaching. A former House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, retired Rep Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) has been a respected figure for decades in America foreign policy debates —and was an early mentor for Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief-of-staff. But in an interview, Hamilton said he winced when the president vowed to do no less than “destroy” ISIL. And Hamilton had to laugh when Arab leaders next promised to join in the U.S. aerial attacks on ISIL—while being silent on providing ground forces. “They’re throwing it right back at us,” Hamilton said. “The strategy is to degrade and destroy. The degrade part of it is relatively easy—we can do that,” Hamilton said. “The `destroy’ is formidable as a challenge and there is nothing that I see at this point in the strategy that makes me think it can be done.” The administration would argue that the language is consistent with what it has said about Al Qaeda in the past: “destroy” its leadership and ability to be a threat. But given the brutality shown by ISIL, the president’s remarks were read as much more violent than that. And certainly Republicans in Congress have seized on Obama’s statements to demand a much stronger military response. “Someday this administration will learn,” Hamilton said. “You don’t say you are going to get rid of Assad and don’t do it. You don’t say you are going to destroy and not do it.” “You cannot set these goals that you are not prepared to achieve,” he continued. “Here we are on record many times, by the president himself, to destroy [ISIL]. OK he set the mark everybody is going to judge Obama now by that standard. It is a standard that is very tough to achieve and he has not set out a strategy to get us there. “Destroying an ideology is very, very hard to do particularly when you are creating a lot of enemies every time you have an air sortie,” Hamilton said. “I don’t see how it can be done unless this coalition comes together in a remarkably cohesive way and includes two things that I don’t see in the strategy. “One is who is going to furnish the ground troops—it’s by no means clear to me where they are coming from,” Hamilton said. “And second, the thing I’ve heard not discussed at all, is you counter an ideology with another ideology, an affirmative one. It’s a war of ideas… Just saying you’re against it, won’t hack it, won’t do it, You have to present the case for the moderate Muslim world for the decent Muslin world.” “The one thing we have going for us is the extremism of the ideology…It is so brutal that it will not appeal in the long run to mainstream populations,” he said. “On our side the Arab world seems to be coming together but not making very strong commitments. That could shape up, it could over time meld into something powerful. But they have a long way to go it seems to me.” At the White House Tuesday, retired Marine Gen. John Allen –tapped by Kerry to the special envoy to the fledgling coalition—was slated to meet with Obama. While up in the Senate, Allen’s old colleague, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, was blunt about the stakes at hand. “It’s our last best chance to convince regional governments that if they don’t solve their internal problems, we can’t do it for them and they better get serious about it,” said Dempsey, a Jersey City native —having to spar with rhetorical questions of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) When Graham forced the question next of what happens if the U.S. has to go in again on the ground if ISIL retreats into Syria, Dempsey came back to the coalition. “If we were to go in on the ground, with armored divisions and flags unfurled, I don’t think we would do anything more than push this problem further to the right,” Dempsey said. “It really comes down to building a coalition so that what the Arab Muslin sees is them rejecting [ISIL].” www.politico.com