Obama’s Strategy Against Jihad

The military response proposed by the U.S. to suppress the Islamic State’s army represents an important step, but doubts remain about its effectiveness.

Last Wednesday, U.S. President Barack Obama announced his strategy against the jihadi group known as the Islamic State, whose quick expansion in the Middle East took the White House by surprise and is putting the entire region’s stability at risk. The president stated that his objective was to “degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL” and to pursue it wherever it hides, thus leaving open the possibility of bombing jihadi sites in Syria. He insisted that this would only entail air strikes, rejecting the option of deploying ground troops in the region — something he had already indicated at the beginning of August after ordering the first attacks on the Islamic State in Iraq.

That message was probably one of the most revealing messages of his administration, having been issued after weeks in which the president’s attitude vis-à-vis various international crises — both in the Middle East and in Europe, with the situation in Ukraine — had been hesitant, unleashing a wave of criticisms. Such criticisms intensified two weeks ago — following the murder of the first of two American journalists executed by jihadis — when he declared that “we don’t have a strategy yet” for fighting the Islamic State in Syria.

Criticism against Obama came from both his party and the Republican opposition. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, for example, described the President as “too cautious,” while his former rival in the 2008 presidential elections, Republican Senator John McCain, affirmed that “President Obama is either in denial or overwhelmed.” Even former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton questioned Obama’s excessive cautiousness on Syria, which allowed the Islamic State to expand.

This all forced Obama to take the initiative. The Islamic State’s expansion in Iraq and Syria, like the crisis in Libya — which has the country mired in a virtual state of anarchy — and even the situation in Ukraine, ultimately compelled the president to assume a more decisive attitude. Nonetheless, the president’s speech leaves many doubts regarding the concrete details of the actions proposed and regarding his actual commitment to fighting this group. For instance, it remains unclear how long the offensive will last — there is no doubt it will be passed on to his successor — how much it will cost, or the actual extent to which the other coalition countries will participate. The president added that this strategy has been successfully implemented in Somalia and Yemen, two countries whose actual realities undermine such optimism.

The seriousness of the situation leaves no room for improvisation and commits the West to take clear and decisive action. For this reason, it is important to clear up any doubts and to clarify the roles that the other countries will have as soon as possible, for time is of the essence. Germany, for example, has made the surprising announcement that it will not take part in the coalition. Thus, Obama’s report to the United Nation’s Security Council will be important. The strategy’s success hinges on the absolute conviction of the one responsible for leading it. The step that Obama has just taken is important, but it risks weakening if this action is not followed by a unified response from all allies, and if it limits itself exclusively to military action, which, though necessary, might prove insufficient to stabilize a region of high strategic importance.