beginning,” and even after the bloodbath in
Paris, he just “can’t seem to change,” said
Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal.
The supposed leader of the free world once
dismissed the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
as the “jayvee” team of terrorism, and
declared just days before Paris that the group
had been “contained.” Now he keeps insisting
that his half-hearted strategy to combat ISIS
is working just fine. At a press conference in
Turkey last week, Obama actually referred
to the horror in Paris as a “setback,” said Charles Krauthammer
in The Washington Post. Most disturbing, however, was Obama’s
petulant demeanor. Questions about his failed Syria policy were
greeted with “weariness and annoyance.” He could only muster
any passion when sneering at Republicans for their opposition to
accepting Syrian refugees—which tells you all you need to know
about this president’s priorities. “One hundred and twenty-nine
innocents lie dead, but it takes the GOP to kindle Obama’s ire.”
Obama’s assumptions about ISIS “have proven to be wrong,” said
Robert Kagan in The Wall Street Journal. He thought the group
would confine its barbarity to the Middle East, and could be
slowly degraded over time by airstrikes and by ground assaults by
Kurdish fighters, the Iraqi army, and friendly Sunni tribesmen. But
with the slaughter in Paris, the downing of a Russian airliner, and
the flood of refugees into Europe from Syria, it’s time for a major
“recalculation.” ISIS has grown into an urgent threat to global stability,
as well as to U.S. national security, and “America will have
to take the lead in dealing with it.” To destroy ISIS, the U.S. will
need to send 10,000 to 20,000 ground troops, and another 30,000
to establish “safe zones” in Syria to keep people from fleeing.
Obama’s measured strategy “may not produce
a quick victory,” said Kai Bird in
ForeignPolicy.com, but it’s still the smart one.
If he succumbed to the “facile and demagogic
cries for war,” U.S. ground forces might
defeat ISIS—but they would “lose the larger
war for the hearts and minds of the Muslim
world.” Every time we’ve used military might
in the region, it has led to a power vacuum,
bitter sectarian struggles, and the rise of new
extremist groups fueled by anger at the
Crusaders’ occupation. The only rational
path is to steadily erode ISIS with airstrikes and Arab ground
forces, and to block its revenues from the sale of black-market oil.
It may not be “emotionally satisfying” to hawkish Republicans,
said Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker, but Obama’s “realism” is
soundly grounded in U.S. experience in the region.
After Paris, though, Obama needs to provide more emotional leadership,
said Frank Bruni in The New York Times. The attacks in
Paris left many Americans fearful, even panicked. They looked to
their president to tell them that “he grasped the magnitude of the
threat and was intensely focused on it.” Instead, Obama chose to
“mock and belittle” his critics, while offering condescending assurances
that his policy is working. Obama should treat the concerns
of frightened Americans with “gravity and respect,” and explain
why he’s sticking with his strategy, even though the threat from
ISIS has clearly evolved. A deeply alarmed nation needs more than
peevish lectures from a president weary of criticism, said Greg Jaffe
in The Washington Post. ISIS slaughtered Parisians in the streets,
and is vowing to do the same in the U.S. “Why hasn’t a man
known for his rhetorical gifts done more to address the fear the
attacks instill in ordinary Americans?”
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