Obama’s Strategy against the Islamic State: America Gives Up on Kobani

Airstrikes got them nowhere: Not even the United States military can save the Kurdish town of Kobani from the Islamic State’s terror militia. This is evidence of President Obama’s ineptitude — his strategy is the subject of increased criticism even from within his own ranks.

The White House has given up on Kobani. The Kurdish enclave on the Syrian border with Turkey, which is surrounded by the Islamic State group’s terror militia, will not hold out much longer. As U.S. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, prophesized Tuesday on the national TV station ABC: “I am fearful that Kobani will fall.”

With this statement, the Americans openly admitted such a defeat at the hands of the Islamic State group for the first time. Dempsey, a four-star general, did not admit just how unsuccessful the U.S. airstrikes were, at the very least in Kobani. Attempts are made to strike at the Islamic State group “when we can,” yet the terrorists are reported to have become enormously flexible and “know how to maneuver.”

Even when ABC reporter Martha Raddatz probed General Dempsey on whether or not the United States was risking a “massacre” and, possibly, the lives of 5,000 people, General Dempsey remained cool, stating the fact that so many inhabitants were still there is “purely speculation.” Most have fled. Indeed, he has no doubt that the Islamic State hordes will conduct “horrific atrocities if they have the opportunity to do so.”

Obama Accepts Humanitarian Catastrophe

The ice-cold manner in which Washington is handling the Kobani tragedy reveals both Barack Obama’s dilemma and his half-baked strategy for combating the murderous Islamic State group’s troops.

His nation is tired of being at war, meaning the president cannot expect his citizens to support much more than launching airstrikes. At the same time, however, he has accepted a kind of humanitarian catastrophe which reminds many of the massacre of Srebrenica, which took place during the 1995 Bosnian War. More than 8,000 people were murdered while the U.N. peacekeepers stood by and watched. As the president once said, it was a “stain on our collective conscience.”

Now he is in a similar predicament. Even if the Americans were prepared to become more involved in the struggle for Kobani, Obama’s hands are tied: The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, likens support from America to the failed attempt to overthrow the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. American General John Allen, Obama’s Islamic State group commissary, is to exert further pressure in Ankara on Thursday. Is it too late for Syria’s Kurds?

The U.S. is “very concerned” about the safety of “innocent civilians in the town of Kobani,” stated White House spokesperson Josh Earnest on Tuesday. These are merely words, when the West’s inaction is taken into account. As if he wanted to underline the hypocrisy, Earnest came back to the airstrikes – the effectiveness of which General Dempsey cast doubt upon only hours later – as well as Obama’s “very coordinated strategy,” which touches all bases bar Kobani’s.

“No One Wants To See Kobani Fall”

As the White House’s already empty words on this topic attest, this strategy is intended to strike the Islamic State group at its roots – logistics, refining, “critical infrastructure.” A place like Kobani is left out in the cold.

This is clear to everyone in Washington, even to Jen Psaki, spokeswoman for the State Department. Yes, a more powerful role in Turkey would be nice. No, airstrikes are not the way to go for the U.S. What, then, does Obama’s Islamic State group strategy look like? With that, Psaki had to rummage around in her papers – only to find more empty words. “It’s horrific for everyone to watch in real time what’s happening in Kobani,” she said. “No one wants to see Kobani fall.”

Such banalities, which deny what is really happening, do not only irritate the correspondents. Criticism of the president’s stance on the Islamic State group is being heard from within his own ranks. This comes, above all, from one of his oldest and closest vassals – Leon Panetta. Initially, as director of the CIA and later as head of the Pentagon, Panetta was involved in the president’s most controversial decisions and successes – the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden, which he oversaw personally, is one of these.

Panetta Decries Obama’s Failure

On Tuesday, the recently retired Panetta did the rounds in the U.S. media to plug his new autobiography. He used his appearances to confront Obama’s failures in the Syria conflict and his joint responsibility for the rise of the Islamic State group. He claims Obama “faltered” for too long in Syria and the Islamic State group was able to “breed” from this vacuum.

The only solution, as Panetta hinted in many interviews, lays, if necessary, in the deployment of U.S. ground troops. A brutal piece of advice – especially since he is the latest in a long line of former presidential confidantes who, in retirement, refuses to give allegiance to Obama. Others include Panetta’s predecessor Robert Gates and the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In other ways as well, in his book “Worthy Fights,” Panetta, a Democrat, cannot find many good words for his former employers. He claims Obama has a “well-reasoned vision for the country”* – yet he also claims this was sabotaged as the president “avoids the battle, complains and misses opportunities.”* Panetta’s depressing conclusion is that, in spite of his good intentions, Obama has “lost his way.”*

Obama himself kept a low profile. He spent the day in New York and Connecticut, where he collected party donations at numerous private gatherings. While there, he lauded “American leadership” in the fight against the Islamic State group.

*Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated could not be verified because access depends on a subscription to the online journal.

He did not utter one word about Kobani.