Juan Cole: Obama’s ISIL Actions are Defensive (Minimalist), Despite Rhetoric of going on Offense

[pampango]

Analysts will focus on his four-step program of fighting ISIL, but it is in the president’s analogies to his present battle that we find clues to what he really expects to happen. He says that this is not a war as Iraq and Afghanistan were wars, i.e. with the commitment of several divisions of conventional US ground troops.

Invoking Yemen and Somalia is a signal of minimalism in every way. On MSNBC, veteran, experienced and brilliant correspondent Richard Engel took apart this analogy. He pointed out that Yemen and Somalia are holding actions but that in Iraq the US and its allies would have to take territory.

What if Obama is a sharper reader of the Middle East than his critics give him credit for? He knows ISIL is likely not going away, just as, after 13 years, the Taliban have not. US military action may even prolong the lifetime of these groups (that is one argument about AQAP) even as it keeps them from taking more territory.

Don’t listen to his expansive four-stage program or his retooled, stage-managed John Wayne rhetoric. Look at his metaphors. He is telling those who have ears to hear that he is pulling a Yemen in Iraq and Syria. He knows very well what that implies. It is a sort of desultory, staccato containment from the air with a variety of grassroots and governmental forces joining in. Yemen is widely regarded as a failure, but perhaps it is only not a success. And perhaps that is all Obama can realistically hope for.

http://www.juancole.com/2014/09/defensive-rhetoric-offense.html

Cole is well informed and always has an interesting take on events in the Middle East.

[flamingdem]

1. Syria is about stasis until leadership emerges

We saw what happened when the truth was stated. The US cannot create reasonable governments and control freak generals and mccains can't deal.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. Cole seems spot on. I almost choked when Obama described Somalia and Yemen as successes.

No, Obama isn't going to invade Iraq and Syria.

But if what he envisions in Iraq and Syria is akin to what we're doing in Somalia and Yemen, that just sounds like a recipe for the forever war. Limited in scope, but not in duration.

[The Magistrate]

3. Decent Analysis, Sir

All of this is fairly close to a modern version of the old 'air control' policies of England in the inter-war period, and mostly in the same regions: Iraq, Yemen, and the Northwest Frontier.