Obama Shouldnt Bomb ISIS in Syria
We have no strategy for intervening there, and no reason to think it will work.
By Fred Kaplan
President Barack Obama addresses the nation from the State Dining Room of the White House on Aug. 7, 2014.
Photo by Mike Theiler/Getty Images
Lets hope that President Obama does not bomb ISIS inside Syriaunless, maybe, the airstrikes are coordinated with some other countrys troops on the ground. Thats what happened in northern Iraq last week, when U.S. airstrikes paved the way for a mix of Iraqi special forces, Shiite militias, and Kurdish peshmerga fighters to push ISIS away from the Mosul Dam. But thats not likely to happen in Syria.
Its not likely to happen for two reasons, both lamentable. First, there are no ground forces inside Syria that can both repel ISIS and serve as palatable American allies. Second, the Obama administration and the neighboring Middle Eastern countries appear to have no strategy of what an intervention in Syria might look like or of what Syrian politics should look like in its aftermath.
That is a particular shame, since the United States and just about every country in the region could form a very potent alliance against ISIS. They all hate and fear the al-Qaida offshoot that calls itself the Islamic State. They all share an interest in seeing the group pummeled. But in many of these countries, domestic politics or conflicting interests on other matters impede such an alliance from forming.
A strange alliancewhich could include the United States, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabiais at least conceptually feasible in Iraq, assuming its new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, forms a government that seems inclusive and responsive to Shiite and Sunni leaders. If Abadi manages this feat (and the bloody sectarian violence in recent days dampens its prospects), this hypothetical alliancewhich includes Sunni and Shiite nations, among otherswould be fighting not just against ISIS but also for a stable and potentially amenable Iraq.
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2014/08/president_obama_shouldn_t_bomb_isis_in_syria_u_s_airstrikes_will_not_be.html