Posted November 20th, 2015 at 3:09 pm (UTC-4)
Hillary Clinton Takes On ISIS
While other candidates are content to issue vague calls to get tough on terror, Clinton offered a multilayered but coherent framework, not only dealing with ISIS but also putting that threat within the crosscutting conflicts that are inflaming the Middle East….
For example, instead of just issuing a generic call to get tough on the terrorists, she pointed to the reality that ISIS will be toppled only if there is an uprising by fellow Sunnis. There has to be a Sunni Awakening against ISIS in 2016, like the Sunni Awakening that toppled Al Qaeda in Iraq starting in 2007.
Clinton lays out ISIS strategy at the Council on Foreign Relations:
Evolving ISIL Changes War
The Editorial Board – USA Today
The Paris attacks, bombings in Lebanon and Turkey, and the downing of a Russian airliner over Egypt show that ISIL is well into a new phase of external attacks. This strategy is more lethal to the West and easier to sustain in the face of bombing. To match this new challenge, the West needs a coherent response. But what? …
Obama’s air campaign is helpful, but with American pilots flying 95% of the missions in Syria until France’s agreement to join in after the Paris attacks, allies can do more… as French President Francois Hollande suggested, the U.S. must build a committed global alliance, including finding a way to work with Russia. It will be crucial to enlist troops from neighboring Arab states…
Until the allure of this brand of extremism is crushed, Islamic terrorism will remain a threat. That battle — fought more by reformist imams, modernizing Middle Eastern governments and an Islamic civil society yearning for peace — will be more important than anything that happens in Syria and could take more patience than a cease-fire.
Police officers take up positions in Saint Denis,a northern suburb of Paris, where raids were conducted on terror suspects, Nov.18, 2015. (AP)
The Long War Continues
In an interview with ABC News the day before Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists killed more than 130 people in multiple, coordinated attacks in Paris, Obama told George Stephanopoulos that the terror group had been “contained.” Stephanopoulos had asked Obama a straightforward question: “ISIS is gaining strength, aren’t they?”
“Well, no, I don’t think they’re gaining strength,” Obama responded. “What is true is that from the start our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them…”
Senator Dianne Feinstein, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and frequent ally of the White House on national security matters, offered a blunt contradiction of Obama’s claim. “I read the intelligence faithfully. ISIS is not contained. ISIS is expanding.”
Obama has been underestimating the threat of the global jihadist movement since before he was sworn in as president.
Watch an excerpt of the president on ABC News:
VIDEO
Obama defended his policy by listing its multifaceted elements. Such as, “I hosted at the United Nations an entire discussion of counterterrorism strategies and curbing the flow of foreign fighters.” An “entire” discussion, mind you. Not a partial one. They tremble in Raqqa.
And “We have mobilized 65 countries to go after ISIL.” Yes, and what would we do without Luxembourg?
Obama complained of being criticized for not being bellicose enough. But the complaint is not about an absence of bellicosity but about an absence of passion, of urgency and of commitment to the fight. The air campaign over Syria averages seven strikes a day. Seven. In Operation Desert Storm, we flew 1,100 sorties a day. Even in the Kosovo campaign, we averaged 138. Obama is doing just enough in Syria to give the appearance of motion, yet not nearly enough to have any chance of success.
