On the Warpath

On Wednesday night, Barack Obama gave a speech that he never could have imagined having to give. Just one day short of 13 years after the September 11 attacks, the president put the United States on the path of another war — or, more accurately, a revisited war — and cultivated public opinion with similar illusions as those George W. Bush dangled when he launched an attack on Saddam Hussein in March 2003.

Mr. Obama’s “doctrine,” if that is indeed what it can be called, is focused on “targeted” air strikes without the deployment of ground troops — in Iraq, and now in Syria, where a civil war of unprecedented violence has raged for three years. Although more ideological, former President Bush had not called for a radically different approach when he launched operation “shock and awe” on March 19, 2003. A series of so-called surgical strikes on Baghdad would, quickly he hoped, do the majority of the work in ridding the geopolitical landscape of Saddam Hussein. After that, the Anglo-American ground invasion would quickly confirm the birth of the new Iraqi democracy, without American bloodshed. In brief, this whole exercise was a formality.

Mr. Obama is more nuanced, or at least more cautious. From one president to another, Americans have grown to dislike the doctrine, particularly the idea of ground military intervention in the Middle East. Two months away from the congressional midterm election, the unpopular Obama is obeying the mandates of domestic politics — not to mention the polls that have been urging him to flex his muscles after the Islamic State’s beheading of two American journalists. He did not have a strategy a week ago, but he had one on Wednesday night.

Acting “to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as Islamic State,” the American president acknowledged during his speech, “will take time” — to do this from the air. Many experts, however, say that it is an illusion to believe that the war against the Islamic State can be carried out effectively without combat troops. Also, although it is sensible and useful to want to unite the Arab world around the American initiative, what are the chances that all of these dictators really want to mobilize against a violent and radical movement, not to mention an outgrowth of al-Qaida, that is destabilizing their region? So Mr. Obama’s anti-terrorist offensive will come down to what is possible, which is simply this: A public relations operation designed to calm the fears and anger of the American public two years before the end of his presidency.

Moreover, the Islamic State is not just a “cancer,” to use Mr. Obama’s word, but also a virus whose militants are spreading to urban areas. The persecution they have subjected the civilian population to will juxtapose the evil inevitably inflicted by the president’s drone policies.

Furthermore, Mr. Obama acknowledged in his speech that the Islamic State is not currently a “direct threat” to the United States. Again, his approach echoes the very controversial “preemptive strikes” policy advocated by the neoconservatives regarding Iraq. History may well repeat itself. The year 2003 gave rise to anti-war protests that the United States had not seen since the Vietnam War. Five years later, Mr. Obama was elected on the promise of breaking the deadlock. How will he get out of this?