The
U.S. Strategy to Defeat ISIS
A briefing by Max Boot
October 6, 2014
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Max Boot, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security
Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a foreign policy analyst
and military historian who advised U.S. commanders in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Mr. Boot briefed the Middle East Forum in a conference call
on October 6, 2014.
President Obama has not offered a cohesive strategy for fighting ISIS.
Since 2010, his determination to disengage from Iraq and Syria was
evident in his refusal to assist the Free Syrian Army and keep U.S.
forces in Iraq beyond 2011. He has partially reversed his stance
following the August 2014 beheadings of American journalists James Foley
and Steven Sotloff, but this is too little too late.
The U.S.-led air strikes have not shaken ISIS's stranglehold on Syria
and Iraq as it closes on Kobani and Baghdad. Obama's lack of resolve was
evident from the start when he ruled out sending U.S. ground troops to
tackle ISIS.
To increase the effectiveness of air strikes requires, at minimum,
U.S. Special Operations to work alongside those Iraqi security forces
that have not been infiltrated by Iranian militia, to instill discipline
and leadership. Similar steps are needed to galvanize the ground forces
of the Peshmerga units, Sunni tribes in the Anbar province of Iraq, and
the Free Syrian Army.
Instead, by seeking a larger rapprochement with Tehran beyond even the
nuclear talks, Washington appears to be tacitly working with the Syrian
regime and empowering its Iranian sponsors, further alienating the Sunni
tribes in Iraq that helped so much in the 2007 surge. The Iranians and
their proxies being the greatest drivers of the conflict, aligning with
them will exacerbate problems. Further, Iran's tactical short-term
objectives have not softened its nuclear ambitions or status as the
number-one state sponsor of terrorism.
Considerable evidence exists of Syrian and Iranian complicity with
al-Qaeda and ISIS. A rampaging ISIS strengthens Assad by making his case
that the alternative to his rule is that of ISIS. A close look shows that
ISIS has gained control primarily of Sunni areas in Syria, and not by
fighting Assad.
The U.S. government should back a third way, by encouraging moderates
to target ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra while avoiding cooperation with the
regime. A more active anti-Assad position would encourage Turkey to use
its troops to set up enclaves in Syria where the FSA and government
opposition forces could operate – notwithstanding Erdoğan's nasty
rhetoric and troubling behavior.
Summary account by Marilyn Stern, Associate Fellow with the Middle East
Forum.
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