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Slate's Fred Kaplan: Obama's Next Move
Obama’s Next Move
The president just described ISIS as a threat to civilization. Now he must back up those words with action.
By Fred Kaplan
President Obama delivers a statement from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, on Aug. 20, 2014.
Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
With his speech on Wednesday condemning ISIS in newly stark, determined language, President Obama now needs to step up his military campaign in equally dramatic fashion.
That does not—and should not—mean sending American ground troops or taking steps that give even the whiff of an American-led war.
The president just described ISIS as a threat to civilization. Now he must back up those words with action.
By Fred Kaplan
President Obama delivers a statement from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, on Aug. 20, 2014.
Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
With his speech on Wednesday condemning ISIS in newly stark, determined language, President Obama now needs to step up his military campaign in equally dramatic fashion.
That does not—and should not—mean sending American ground troops or taking steps that give even the whiff of an American-led war.
If the jihadists of ISIS are as dangerous as Obama says they are (and the evidence suggests they are), then it’s time to plow through diplomatic niceties and pursue the common interests of nations with which we otherwise might not get along. Yes, it’s politically awkward, to say the least, for Obama to make common cause, even on this one issue, with Assad (a monster whom he once said “must go”) and the mullahs of Tehran (most of whom regard America as the “great Satan”). But in World War II, Roosevelt and Churchill joined with Stalin to defeat Hitler—and, if they hadn’t, Hitler would have won.
The fighters of ISIS aren’t ragtag hooligans, but they’re not Hitler’s Panzer Corps, they’re not Saddam’s Republican Guards, they’re not even the Taliban. The fight isn’t a cakewalk, but it doesn’t have to be a huge struggle, if the Western politicians can get over their complexes about working with certain bad people in order to defeat even worse people.
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