SEEING THE REAL WORLD – AT 9:45 A.M. ET: The Washington Post editorial page gives fits to true-believing liberals because the editors think for themselves, a practice not encouraged by the modern left. Once again the Post gets it right in challenging Obama's adolescent approach to the battle against ISIS:
U.S. OFFICIALS are celebrating a modest victory in the war against the Islamic State in Syria — the apparently successful defense of the Kurdish town of Kobane, on the border with Turkey. Under siege since early October, Kobane has little strategic value but came to be seen as a test of whether the United States and its allies could stop the expansion of the Islamic State and the humanitarian crimes that accompany it.
With the help of Kurdish ground forces, the extremists were turned back. But perhaps the most significant fact about Kobane is that it consumed 75 percent of the nearly 1,000 airstrikes carried out by allied planes throughout Syria since September, according to The Post.
That astonishing share reveals the absence of a U.S. military strategy for Syria outside of preventing the fall of a single border hamlet that attracted the attention of international media. In the rest of the Syrian territory it controls, including its capital of Raqqa, the Islamic State faces little pressure from Western airstrikes and is growing stronger rather than weaker.
Mr. Obama still speaks of fostering a Syrian rebel force that could fight the Islamic State. But the initiative is pathetically underresourced and moving at a snail’s pace. Similarly, a CIA program to help rebel groups has been so limited that many fighters have defected to more militant Sunni groups, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Behind this feckless effort is a cluster of mistaken notions. Mr. Obama has convinced himself that it’s not possible or desirable to create a Syrian force that could defeat the regime of Bashar al-Assad; that the only alternative to his policy is an Iraq-style invasion by U.S. troops; and that the Islamic State can somehow be defeated in Iraq without tackling its Syrian birthplace and stronghold.
And...
Mr. Obama’s passivity and false hopes are contributing to the steady worsening of the humanitarian and strategic situation in Syria, and the postponement of steps required for an acceptable outcome. These include military action to weaken the Assad regime and a concerted effort to create a new Syrian army and government. Kobane’s relief, while welcome, won’t alleviate the mounting catastrophe.
COMMENT: Well said. I wonder if the Post's editorial-page editors still get invited to cocktail parties in Georgetown.
I suspect that Obama's "strategy" is to make a bad nuclear deal with Iran in exchange for Iran helping us against ISIS. That will fail as Iran will never help us. The backup strategy will be to kick the can down the road and let the next president handle it.
January 28, 2015 |