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Obama Holds the Military Back in Syria and Iraq

For the past day or so the cable news networks have been—rightfully—highlighting the plight of Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish city on the border between Syria and Turkey that has been under assault from the Islamic State for weeks now. The situation there is grave, and despite an American-led bombing campaign that, in theory, offers the Islamist group no safe-haven, the town has been on the verge of falling into IS hands for days.

Luckily for the residents of Kobani, the pressure of cable news and the associated echo chamber of the Washington media is actually the thing most likely to move the White House on issues of war and peace. The president’s advisers have surely been paying attention to the coverage, considering the negative PR consequences of the slaughter of thousands of our natural allies in the region, and making the case to the boss that, really, we have to do something. Indeed, as I write, tweets are coming in from journalists on the Turkish side of the border at Kobani noting that airstrikes seem more frequent and intense there tonight than on previous evenings.

Good. But why has it come to this? The U.S. military has been targeting IS for weeks now. Why does this glorified terrorist group have the logistical and operational wherewithal to continue an offensive at the edge of their zone of control along the Euphrates? Why aren’t they collapsing, or at the very least showing strain, before the combined weight of the greatest military in the world? Why, instead, are they on the attack?

It’s going to take time, the president and his advisers say. But it is taking time because we have made the decision to take our time. The military appears to be planning no additional deployments to ramp up its aviation assets in the region, relying only on what would normally be on station.

In Syria, there seems to be a genuine reluctance on the part of the administration and its military advisers to defeat the Islamic State at all, out of fears about what might replace it. In Iraq, where initially it looked like we might take things a little more seriously, inasmuch as Iraq's political situation post-Maliki was somewhat less complicated than Syria’s, things are nearly as bad. Abu Ghraib—next to the Baghdad airport—is more or less occupied by IS, the town of Hit has fallen to the terrorists, and Ramadi looks to be next.

Militarily, this makes no sense. With assistance from forward observers and special operations units, the U.S. military’s aviation assets could lay waste to the Islamic State in a matter of a few months. Certainly within a few weeks it could seize all IS initiative and force them to move backwards rather than forward.

Indeed, this is exactly what happened to the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. Strikes began in October (thirteen years ago today, as it happens) and by December the Taliban—a larger, better equipped and more experienced force than IS, fighting on much more defensible terrain—was militarily done.

Of course, it is thirteen years later and there is still a war in Afghanistan, a fact that no doubt weighs heavily on the president. You have to get the aftermath right, not just the initial fight. But, bizarrely, that important observation is being used as an excuse to screw up the one thing the United States did well—win the initial fight. Now, allegedly out of concern about getting the aftermath right, we are fighting with an enormous self-imposed handicap.

It is impossible not to question the motivation of the president and his inner circle. They communicate every indication that they engage in this fight with extraordinary reluctance. They are driven not by the imperative to act aggressively and according to a simple, bold plan, but are purely reactive, driven by domestic public opinion and the pressure of the latest pending atrocity to be blessed with attention from cable news networks.

The aftermath is important. We have made many mistakes in both Iraq and Afghanistan in the past by poorly planning for what comes after the initial fight. Workable ideas for this time are not hard to find. But all involve making decisions, acting aggressively, and seizing the initiative—necessary qualities of any successful military effort. Proponents of the president’s strategy should ask themselves when they last saw an indecisive, overly cautious, and reactive military strategy succeed—even when it masqueraded as the nuanced plan of a president, and an administration, comfortable with complexity.