Main Candidates for US Presidential Election More Aggressive against Islamic State Group than Obama

The attacks in Paris led the principal candidates for the 2016 U.S. presidential election to put forward, in the days following Nov. 13, their plans for fighting the Islamic State — with good reason, because in little more than a year, one of them will be responsible for waging war on the terrorist group. Behind in the polls for the moment, Jeb Bush, the Republican nominee hopeful, spoke on the subject on Nov. 18 to cadets at a South Carolina military school. The following day, Hillary Clinton, the favorite in the Democratic race, took it up at length before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Finally, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who has focused a lot on foreign policy, published an opinion column on the Politico website the same day.

These three candidates are all distancing themselves, each in his [or her] own way, from the strategy laid out by Democratic President Barack Obama in September 2014 to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State group, the results of which are, it is generally agreed, insufficient. This strategy limits U.S. engagement, within an international coalition, to aerial bombardments. The task of holding ground against the jihadis falls to the Iraqi army, Syrian opposition and Kurdish forces. These latter were the only ones capable of pushing the Islamic State group back near their strongholds in northeast Syria and northwest Iraq. The White House gave assurances of having learned from its failures by canceling a program to train Syrians to fight against the jihadis (which produced no tangible results), and by announcing that it was sending some 50 members of the Special Forces to support the Kurds.

These three plans, which all require the broadest possible coalition, underscored three main differences of the Obama strategy, which the two Republican candidates express more forcefully [than Hillary Clinton], as she is anxious not to differentiate herself too dramatically from the president. The first recalibration put forth by the candidates lies in the intensity of U.S. military effort — considered insufficient at the moment. “Obama hopes he can defer leadership long enough for ISIL to become the next president’s problem,” laments Sen. Rubio. Obama has never hidden the fact that he did not anticipate achieving his goal before leaving the White House on Jan. 20, 2017.

This caution has fueled a waiting game. Bush and Rubio accuse the president of simply wanting to “contain” the jihadis. Clinton, without implicating Obama, echoes them by assuring that the Islamic State group must not be “contained, it must be defeated.” The U.S. counteroffensive must be all-out and not limited to air forces. The former secretary of state thus evokes a “surge” in intelligence. The word chosen refers to the reinforcements decided upon by Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, which in 2007 allowed for a reduction in Iraqi tensions and the decapitation of the branch of al-Qaida from which the Islamic State group arose.

Defeating the Islamic State Group Requires Defeating Assad

The second similarity between the three plans revolves around the need to create a no-fly zone in northern Syria to protect an enclave capable of serving as a refuge for the Syrian civilian population and thus limiting the flood of refugees. The three candidates articulate the creation of this sanctuary (safe zone) with the same objective: “defeating Assad” (Rubio), “who, let us remember, has killed many more Syrians than the terrorists have” (Clinton). “Defeating ISIS requires defeating Assad,” as Bush already believed (and mentioned) in an August speech. Obama has consistently opposed the creation of such a zone, deterred by its implications for the deployment of troops to protect it, and by the fact that it would be a target for terrorist operations.

Finally, the third common element in the speeches of the three candidates lies in [the need to put] greater pressure on the Iraqi central government, controlled by Shiite factions hostile to the reinforcement by the U.S. of the Kurdish and Sunni camps. But the mistrust of Sunnis toward Baghdad facilitated the expansion of the Islamic State group from 2011 to 2014. The Sahwa (“awakening”) militias, who fought against al-Qaida in the military surge, are considered to have been betrayed by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose departure the U.S. obtained after the jihadi push in summer 2014, and was abandoned by the U.S. after the withdrawal of its troops concluded in December 2011. In the absence of tangible results on the ground, Bush, Clinton and Rubio are all considering disregarding the Iraqi reserves. “We need to make it clear to Baghdad,”* assured the Democrat, [who is] ready, like Rubio, to deliver weapons directly to the Kurds and Sunnis if the Iraqi authorities do not.

Similar on many points, these three plans differ, however, on the question of sending American ground troops, even if no one envisaged the return of tens of thousands of soldiers deployed in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. For Clinton, a massive presence would be “a mistake,” an observation shared with Obama. “When I am president,” wrote Mr. Rubio, “I will tell my commanders that the mission is the total destruction of ISIL and will send them the forces necessary to succeed.” Between the two, Bush stands squarely in a middle ground, as expressed in August: A number of U.S. military, well above the 3,500 deployed in Iraq, [were deployed] “to convey that we are serious,” without there being any question of “a major commitment of American combat forces” that, for that matter, “our friends do not ask for.”

Only Republican candidate Lindsey Graham, a pillar of the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations, appeals for sending a contingent of 10,000 U.S. troops since his entry into the campaign six months ago. Just the opposite, Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had voted against the invasion of Iraq in 2002, campaigns for the Arab powers assuming the bulk of the war effort.

Donald Trump’s Hawkish Options

The current Republican favorite, Donald Trump, contents himself with hawkish options without more precision, focusing his remarks on the necessity to stop accepting refugees from Syria for security reasons. His immediate rival, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, felt compelled to reveal an opinion column to the Washington Post on Nov. 18 to erase the embarrassment generated by several questionable comments. According to The New York Times, the crisis has led the Republican candidate to seek the help of a former CIA expert from whom he had distanced himself after the latter had denounced his inability to assess foreign policy issues.

During the fourth debate between the leading candidates for the Republican nomination on Nov. 10, Carson had actually affirmed that China was operating in Syria, a statement not supported by any factual elements. Five days later, on Fox News, he had been incapable of citing the first country he would wish to see included in the international coalition that he would call on to fight against the jihadis. Favorable, also, to the creation of a no-fly zone in northern Syria, Ben Carson had also affirmed that the United States should shoot down any Russian aircraft venturing into that area. And “if, after we shoot down a Russian plane, they shoot down one of ours?” the journalist Chris Wallace asked him. “We’ll see,” he replied calmly.

* Editor’s Note: This quote, accurately translated, could not be verified.