Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
Paul Saunders
When President Barack Obama acknowledged in September 2014 that “we don’t have a strategy yet” to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), he stunned his supporters and detractors alike. Obama was similarly candid nine months later, when he announced in a June 2015 statement, “we don’t yet have a complete strategy.” But why not?
Three reasons appear paramount. The first is the president’s defensive approach to foreign policy. On too many issues, President Obama seems primarily motivated by what he wants to avoid rather than what he wants to achieve. Consider Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Iran, where Obama has sought to avoid military operations in recent years. Libya is the exception that proves the rule, in that the American role in deposing Muammar el-Qaddafi seems to have validated the president’s instincts about the perils of what he terms “military adventures.”
Secondly, Obama too often resembles a pedantic law professor: he is clearly quite skilled at pointing out the flaws in his subordinates’ proposals. The problem is this: a professor’s job ends at that point; a president’s starts. Yet this president’s avoidant foreign policy seems to prevent him from going further. Finally, Obama does not intuitively understand the exercise of power—not just how and when to use it, but its foundations, its psychology and its consequences. The result of these three factors is a “none-of-the-above” policy assembled from the shards of discarded options.
Obama has appropriately rejected a large-scale U.S. military intervention in Syria. Absent ISIL’s emergence, the president seems unlikely to have ordered even the relatively limited airstrikes and troop deployments he has directed so far. Despite his caution, Obama retains ambitious top-level goals—removing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, destroying ISIL and stabilizing Syria. Unfortunately, the tension between these grand ends and a limited, incoherent effort to achieve them appears to escape the president’s notice. Indeed, after declining to fight a major war, he has also repudiated almost every other major policy option.
One possibility was not to become involved in the Syrian quagmire at all. Obama presumably knew in 2011 that he was unwilling to make the emerging civil war one of his foreign-policy priorities, much less to commit significant political capital to mobilizing public and congressional support for military operations. Yet, likely in part to avoid criticism, he did get involved by saying that “the time has come for President Assad to step aside” in August of that year. It was an understandable sentiment in the wake of the Syrian leader’s brutal suppression of dissent—but it appeared to be a rather casual statement, reflecting the moment rather than any genuine determination to oust Assad. Among other things, this has further wounded Obama’s already ailing credibility with U.S. allies in the region. At the same time, it has hamstrung the United States in pursuing a diplomatic path.
A diplomatic solution to Syria’s civil war is the most obvious alternative to military force and to disengagement. The administration appeared initially intent on pursuing this approach: it worked with other United Nations Security Council members to approve a six-point peace plan submitted by UN special envoy Kofi Annan and coordinated with the Arab League. In practice, however, the U.S. insistence upon Assad’s departure as a condition for any agreement transformed this process—and subsequent Geneva II discussions—into diplomacy of form but not substance. Taking into account that few if any leaders in Assad’s situation would agree to U.S. demands unless there were no alternative, and that the president was not contemplating forcing Assad out, this faux diplomacy has been doomed from the start—and remains so today, unless the administration dramatically increases its military role in Syria or revises its aims.
Another option was to coordinate and support efforts by America’s allies and partners in the Middle East to remove Assad or even to delegate Syria to them. For a time in 2012 and 2013, the president’s de facto policy was indeed to let regional states, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, fight the Assad regime. In practice, however, this could work only if the regional states could harmonize their efforts and outdo Iran—requirements that were predictably quite difficult to meet.
“Leading from behind,” which gets more criticism than it deserves, also failed. There can be advantages to playing a supporting and coordinating role, but succeeding at it requires that U.S. leaders clearly understand two important realities: first, U.S. objectives are not identical to those of our allies or partners, and second, America’s ability to align their goals with ours is proportionate to Washington’s contribution. It is puzzling, therefore, that before ISIL’s initial successes stimulated greater U.S. involvement, the president and senior administration officials seemed to expect that they could direct the anti-Assad campaign from the sidelines, without providing too much help.
One possibility was not to become involved in the Syrian quagmire at all. Obama presumably knew in 2011 that he was unwilling to make the emerging civil war one of his foreign-policy priorities, much less to commit significant political capital to mobilizing public and congressional support for military operations. Yet, likely in part to avoid criticism, he did get involved by saying that “the time has come for President Assad to step aside” in August of that year. It was an understandable sentiment in the wake of the Syrian leader’s brutal suppression of dissent—but it appeared to be a rather casual statement, reflecting the moment rather than any genuine determination to oust Assad. Among other things, this has further wounded Obama’s already ailing credibility with U.S. allies in the region. At the same time, it has hamstrung the United States in pursuing a diplomatic path.
A diplomatic solution to Syria’s civil war is the most obvious alternative to military force and to disengagement. The administration appeared initially intent on pursuing this approach: it worked with other United Nations Security Council members to approve a six-point peace plan submitted by UN special envoy Kofi Annan and coordinated with the Arab League. In practice, however, the U.S. insistence upon Assad’s departure as a condition for any agreement transformed this process—and subsequent Geneva II discussions—into diplomacy of form but not substance. Taking into account that few if any leaders in Assad’s situation would agree to U.S. demands unless there were no alternative, and that the president was not contemplating forcing Assad out, this faux diplomacy has been doomed from the start—and remains so today, unless the administration dramatically increases its military role in Syria or revises its aims.
Another option was to coordinate and support efforts by America’s allies and partners in the Middle East to remove Assad or even to delegate Syria to them. For a time in 2012 and 2013, the president’s de facto policy was indeed to let regional states, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, fight the Assad regime. In practice, however, this could work only if the regional states could harmonize their efforts and outdo Iran—requirements that were predictably quite difficult to meet.
“Leading from behind,” which gets more criticism than it deserves, also failed. There can be advantages to playing a supporting and coordinating role, but succeeding at it requires that U.S. leaders clearly understand two important realities: first, U.S. objectives are not identical to those of our allies or partners, and second, America’s ability to align their goals with ours is proportionate to Washington’s contribution. It is puzzling, therefore, that before ISIL’s initial successes stimulated greater U.S. involvement, the president and senior administration officials seemed to expect that they could direct the anti-Assad campaign from the sidelines, without providing too much help.
