Back to ISIS

++Yesterday we left everyone just as Andrew Sullivan fell in despair over the President declaring war against ISIS. Today, the president's advisers debated whether it was in fact war and eventually it was agreed that it was. Andrew is trying to avoid hysteria today but he rightly notes that we have Americanized a war which should properly fought by those most threatened--namely neighboring Arab states--and he fears we are just going down another sinkhole. He urges all readers of The Dish to call their congress critters and urge them to vote no on any military appropriations for this adventure.

++The Israeli defense and intelligence officials were in town for the periodic strategic talks but were most concerned that Iran might win brownie points for fighting ISIS and the Obama Administration would weaken the sanctions on Iran for their nuclear program. 

++The "moderate" Syrian "rebels" have formed a non-aggression pact with ISIS around Damascus. Others have joined ISIS because they pay OK and provide housing and food.

++John Kerry got the Arab League, including Egypt,Saudi Arabia and Lebanon to sign the Jeddah Statement vowing cooperation with the international efforts against ISIS.

++Booman at Booman Tribune writes that he spoke for an hour and a half with Obama officials before the President's speech and came away satisfied that they were intelligent and understood the pitfalls in this plan. They said that it took a while for the Obama Administration to successfully conclude a regime change in Iraq and until then the administration did not want to seem to be the Shiite air force.However, he did note that the Syrian angle in this plan is weak because we don't have a viable partner to push back against ISIS and no plans for the endgame.

++Brookings put out all the tweets of their scholars on this strategy and all of them zeroed in on the problem in the Syrian dimension. Ken Pollack from the Iraq War days came up with a long and tortured plan about how to build a new conventional Syrian Army.

++Syria,Russia and Iran protested Obama's speech because it may violate international law but mostly because they were not included. 

++Rachel Maddow showed the interview with the deputy Syrian foreign minister, where he implied sort of that they might shoot down American planes. What has been going on behind the scenes is that the Administration has been quietly informing the Syrians of their plans. Review the Maddow segment. It isn't quite clear that the Syrian minister really suggested that or put out a quiet reminder that they want to be told of any flights.

++The House withdrew at President Obama's request the temporary Government funding bill so that it could include the $500 million for the Syrian opposition and the on-going Iraq mission. The GOP is divided because they would like a separate vote on the funding. 

++Congress itself will not vote on any up and down resolution until October at the earliest. Most do not want to consider it until next year.

++Chris Dickey has become hawkish in his old age. He chastised the United States for not having the imagination to fight Islamic terrorism and urged Americans to get into their heads. He pointed out that the whole bureaucracy of Homeland Security equals all of ISIS and that we spent trillions post 9-11 to combat people who spent $500 to crash into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Dickey's point is a good one--our gigantism creates reactions that are not proportional to the real threat. He also cautioned those who say ISIS poses no threat to the United States because our bureaucrats said the same thing before 9-11 about Al Qaeda.

++The CIA ramped up its estimate about how many ISIS members there were. At about 35,000, some analysts are saying they are greater than many armies. But just as a parallel, the Salvadoran guerrillas at their height had about the same amount of people.

++David Ignatius in the Washington Post said that Obama as "the reluctant warrior" will generate a coalition that will work with the United States because it does not look like an American crusade. John Stewart did a brilliant spot that in fact the coalition right now looks alike like Christians going after Muslims. 

++General Petraeus weighed in that he approved of the President's strategy.

++Reading about 50 articles analyzing the strategy, what strikes me is that it is too "intellectual". The timeframe given means that someone other than Obama will have to finish out the job. It reminds me of the complexity of the Affordable Care Act and why people still prefer single payer. The plan has too many moving parts and questionable assumptions. 

++The Main thrust of the strategy is based on an analysis of why the Arab Spring failed and how deep the religious and ethnic animosities are in the Middle East. If you have an enemy who is absolutely loathsome like ISIS, which is hated by everyone in the region, the hope is that you can at least get tactical alliances which will overcome the Sunni-Shiite divide and eventually establish a stable, more pluralistic Middle East. 

++Andrew Sullivan has pointed out that so-called coalition partners like Turkey and Saudi Arabia have really not stepped up to the plate. Others have ridiculed the notion of a coalition by pointing out that the UK and Germany have refused to fly missions in Syria. But all of the partners have agreed to parts of the overall strategy. Australia, Britain, Germany have participated in the humanitarian missions in Iraq. France has agreed to fly missions, even into Syria. When compared to the coalition of the willing in the second Iraq war, you now have France,Germany and even Turkey who did not participate then.

++Eventually the Obama Administration has to come clean on what they want Russia, Syria and Iran's role to be in the effort. Quietly,they have asked China to participate. After all China is now the largest consumer of Saudi oil. But what about Russia? ISIS has threatened terrorism in Russia. ISIS has drawn Chechen recruits. Would Russia agree to dump Assad with a guarantee about Tartus to enter the game? 

++Currently, our "real" boots on the ground are the Iranian forces in Iraq led by General Sulieman. We are already coordinating airstrikes with the Iranian forces on the ground and with Iranian airstrikes.

++But move into Syria,Iran keeps Assad afloat with the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah. I have heard that cooperation with Iran is a "red-line" and that the United States must dismantle the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq if we are to succeed. But this is impractical and we saw with a full force in Iraq we could't do it.

++Other analysts say that there is an opening to defeat ISIS. Their military prowess in Iraq is the result of former Iraqi military officers from Saddam's regime. They formed a tactical alliance with ISIS because they want to get back into influence in Iraq. But they are Baathists and secular. These are the people Paul Bremmer removed when he disbanded the Iraqi military. The problem is that Sunnis in Iraq feel more comfortable with these forces around than those of the Shiite dominated government.

++I sometimes feel as gloomy about the situation as Andrew Sullivan. We have a President who is enamored with the Special Forces as JFK was. And we know where that got us with his successor in Vietnam.

++I think it will be very hard for President Obama to keep selling this strategy. While he made his case,he has to make his case over and over again to an increasingly skeptical public and Congress. While Republicans are using this as a "Gotcha" and a revival of everyone who got us into Iraq in the first place, ultimately they don't have the stomach for a long war in the Middle East.