Attacks call Obama's strategy into question
After administration was touting progress against Islamic State, Paris marks a stunning setback.
| JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty
By Michael Crowley
November 14, 2015	9:07 pm
Coming just a day after President Barack Obama's comment that the Islamic State had been "contained," the terrorist attacks in Paris have cast doubt on the administration's strategy and efforts to show gains against the jihadist group, which claimed credit for the carnage.
Obama convened a National Security Council meeting on Saturday, promising to review the latest intelligence surrounding the attacks, while French President Francois Hollande spoke of them as an "act of war."
But even as the carnage unfolded in Paris, critics questioned whether Obama has oversold the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS. On Friday night, Liz Cheney tweeted that ISIL had attacked "hours after Obama claims he has 'contained' them, just like he defeated al Qaeda and 'ended the war in Iraq.'"
A senior administration official countered that criticism on Saturday, saying that Obama had been referring to the military situation on the ground—not the group's ability to stage attacks in the West. ISIL has taken credit for the Paris massacre, and intelligence officials believe the Syria-based Sunni Muslim group is indeed responsible.
"The President was referring to halting ISIL's momentum and territorial control in Iraq and Syria, where they have lost 20-25 percent of populated territory they once controlled," the official told POLITICO. "The tragedies this week in Paris, Beirut and Baghdad do not change that fact."
Before Friday's nightmare in France, Obama officials were touting new signs of action against ISIL. They include the dispatch last month of 50 special operations troops to northern Syria—the first U.S. boots on the ground in that country—and the apparent killing by drone strike Thursday of Mohammed Emwazi, also known as "Jihadi John," the masked ISIL fighter who beheaded several westerners in horrific online videos last year.
On Thursday, Obama struck a cautiously optimistic tone in a sit-down interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, saying that U.S.-led air strikes have "contained the momentum that ISIL had gained" in its 2014 rampage across Syria and Iraq. Obama added that the U.S. had still not "completely decapitate[d]" the group's command and control system.
Several leading Republicans—including many of the 2016 Republican candidates—were quick to pounce on Obama for being too timid in his pursuit of ISIL.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, for instance, scoffed at "targeted airstrikes with zero tolerance for civilian casualties," while Donald Trump taunted Obama on Twitter for claiming progress against the group "just hours before the horrible attack in Paris."
"There should be no doubt that ISIL poses a direct threat to the United States," Republican Senator John McCain said in a statement. "This growing threat is a failure of U.S. foreign policy, and if the Administration does not get more serious about combatting it, our nation and our people will pay a grave price,"
Hawkish military analysts who have been calling for more U.S. troops and equipment against ISIL also derided Obama's strategy in the aftermath of the Paris bloodshed.
"We have been expecting something like this to happen — and I expect more," said Frederick Kagan, head of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute and a longtime adviser to U.S. military commanders. "The idea that ISIL was a local phenomenon focused on Iraq and Syria was not true. The whole story we have been telling ourselves has been demonstrably wrong — a fantasy world of our own making. It has been apparent for some time you can't contain ISIL in Iraq and Syria."
"It is urgent we eliminate the safe havens," he added, citing ISIL's presence in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and elsewhere.
In a sign of U.S. concern about the group's spreading tentacles, the Pentagon on Saturday announced that a U.S. strike had killed an ISIL leader in Libya, where the group has been gaining strength for months.
Kagan said that a much more aggressive intelligence and military strategy is especially important if it turns out, as he suspects, that the Paris terrorists were foot soldiers returning from the battlefields of the Middle East and not wholly homegrown radicals.
For all their criticism of Obama, few Republicans have endorsed Kagan's call for sending another 10,000 to 20,000 troops to Iraq. Currently about 3,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq in non-combat roles, with 50 Special Forces troops dispatched to northern Syria.
Several Republican candidates, including Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ben Carson have called for a U.S.-imposed "no fly zone" in Syria, though they remain vague on the details of its size and logistics. Hillary Clinton also backs such a zone—to protect rebel fighters and refugees from Syrian regime air attacks—though President Obama dismisses the idea as more complicated and risky than his critics suggest.
There is some basis for Obama's containment claim. The American airstrikes that began in August 2014 have stopped ISIL's advances in northern and western Iraq.
But ISIL still holds much strategically vital territory, including Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul. U.S. military officials once spoke of helping Iraqi forces liberate Mosul this past summer, but that talk halted after ISIL unexpectedly seized the western city of Ramadi in May. That led Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to declare that Iraqi government forces — who were to lead a counter-offensive against ISIL — lacked "the will to fight."
After Russian president Vladimir Putin's began his own air strikes in Syria in September, Obama drew more criticism for not showing clearer results against ISIL after more than a year of bombing.
Seemingly in response, Obama has recently taken modest steps to intensify the U.S. military campaign. Obama approved the delivery of ammunition to a Kurdish-Arab coalition in northern Syria, and then dispatched 50 Special Forces troops to that area. Carter has promised more Special Forces raids on ISIL leaders, while military officials have intensified their air strikes on lucrative oil fields under the group's control in eastern Syria.
For the first time in weeks, Obama officials were able to point to nuggets of good news from the region. Late last week, Kurdish fighters retook the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar and cut off the main highway supplying Mosul from the de facto ISIL capital of Raqqa in northern Syria.
Secretary of State John Kerry has touted his ability to bring several countries involved in the Syrian civil war — including mortal enemies Saudi Arabia and Iran — together for talks aimed at achieving a political settlement in that country.
Another session of those talks concluded on Saturday in Vienna, where diplomats agreed on a timeline for a political transition but sidestepped key details like the fate of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
On Friday afternoon, it appeared that the week would close on a high note for Obama's ISI fight. Kerry was headed to Vienna. And the administration had notched a huge moral and propaganda triumph in the apparent killing of Emwazi, who had become the sinister face of ISIL in America even if he was not among the groups' top leaders.
Responding to reports of Emwazi's death from Tunis on Friday, Kerry offered a tough message for the terrorist group: "Your days are numbered, and you will be defeated," Kerry sternly declared.
Less than twelve hours later, the first shots rang out in Paris.
ISIL crisis snares Clinton and Obama
By Glenn Thrush
More from ... Michael Crowley
G20 leaders — minus Putin and Xi — vow to step up help for Afghanistan
Mario Draghi downplays missing two leaders from the talks.
Afghan diplomat in Italy: We're not giving up, nor should the West
Afghanistan's ambassador to Italy said his home country is once again a terrorist haven, and the West must take notice.
French forces kill leader of Islamic State in Greater Sahara
The French president welcomes the 'major success in our fight against terrorist groups in Sahel.'
How 9/11 shaped Joe Biden's approach to the politics of national tragedy
A moment of chaos turned into a frantic attempt to address the nation, and gave the public a hint of how Biden would operate in the Oval Office.
October 12, 2021	11:05 pm
By Jacopo Barigazzi
September 19, 2021	4:29 pm
By Hannah Roberts
September 16, 2021	12:40 pm
By Liv Klingert
By Eugene Daniels
Paris terror attacks	Terrorism