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Obama and the War on ISIS

The mismatch between words and policies has been a long-running problem for the administration.
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The Post wants more escalation from the Obama administration in the war on ISIS:

It is well within the capacity of the United States to destroy the Islamic State. But it won’t happen until the president makes that — and not the minimization of U.S. intervention — the objective that determines military deployments.

The goal of destroying ISIS has always seemed far-fetched because the costs involved in doing so would be considerable and higher than most Americans are prepared to accept, and it has never been at all clear that this would be a wise or desirable use of U.S. resources in the first place. As soon as Obama stated that the goal of the campaign was to “destroy” ISIS (which was a dramatic change from the original “limited” intervention), he opened himself up to incessant demands to do more, and he will likely give in to them at some point. He will give in to them more slowly than hawks would like, and so he will get no credit from them when he eventually does more or less what they want, and in the process the U.S. will be mired deeper in an unnecessary war that Obama could have avoided all along.

As he has often done, Obama indulged in rhetorical overkill and set a goal that “limited” U.S. measures could not achieve. Obama issues stern ultimatums and declares maximalist goals to please hawks, but tries to limit U.S. involvement enough so that it does not anger everyone else. Instead of achieving some sort of balance between opposing policies, this just creates a muddle that pleases no one and is bound to be judged a failure on its own terms. Just as he did in Syria, he created an expectation that the U.S. would pursue one kind of policy while pursuing a different, less ambitious one. The gap between the two is obvious to everyone, and so it is just a matter of time before there is growing pressure to close that gap through escalation.

The mismatch between words and policies has been a long-running problem for the administration, and it is one that keeps dragging it towards deeper involvement in each new crisis or conflict so that the policies get closer to matching the public rhetoric. It would be far better for Obama to disavow his earlier careless rhetoric and refrain from any larger commitment in a conflict that the U.S. should never have joined. Ideally, Obama would end the illegal and unnecessary war he started last year, but just avoiding further escalation would be a good start.

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