When speaking about his strategy against the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS or ISIL), there appears to be a common theme that President Barack Obama stresses – that he will not repeat the mistakes of his predecessor George W. Bush and be dragged into yet another bloody and lengthy war in the Middle East. However if you look closely at his supposedly different strategy, you realize that it is not so different where it counts.
In his Presidential Address on ISIL, Obama said the US military will wage an air campaign against ISIS targets through “a ‘steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist using our airpower.” He goes on to say this would be done in co-operation with a number of other nations who would form a military alliance. While at first this may sound like a preferable alternative to returning US combat troops to Iraq, Barack Obama is mistaken if he thinks he has learned much of anything from the mistakes of his predecessor Bush when fighting terrorism. Based on the strategy Obama has laid out, America is doomed to another loss in its battle in the War on Terror.
Obama’s most critical mistake is his reliance on air assault. In recent history America has proved to be very good at bombing things, sometimes using a “shock and awe” technique as a means of gaining military advantage (see the air assaults in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya for example). However in recent history America has also proved to be very poor at dealing with the outcomes of such air campaigns (see the air assaults in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya for example). These failures can be argued as one of the causal factors of the rise in ISIS over the last 5 years.
It is critical when combatting terrorist organizations that a state must not forget the role the local population plays. Terrorist organizations often depend on local populations for things such as, supplies needed to sustain battle, concealment from their attackers, and a source of new recruits. With this in mind it should be clear to many that bombing is one of the surest ways a counterterrorist entity can drive a populace to extremism. Again, the failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq come to mind, or perhaps consider the state of Israel and its problem with extremism in the occupied territories.
And here rises an issue for America – bombing urban populations is going to become necessary when ISIS fighters congregate in them to shelter from the destruction of their rural bases and training centers. If Obama really wants to “degrade and destroy” ISIS, he will eventually have to strike areas such as Falluja and Mosul in Iraq, and possibly even Raqqa in Syria (this opens a whole other can of worms).
It is truly a shame that Western powers have yet to learn this important lesson – when fighting terrorists hiding in civilian populations, bombing becomes an act of terrorism, and you cannot fight terrorism with terrorism. For every bomb that is dropped, for every militant that is killed, a new one is born. It is laughable that Obama points to “successful” drone programs in Yemen and Somalia, two countries that are actually now seeing a rise in extremism.
Thus, several predictions can be made regarding the outcome of Obama’s air strategy in combatting ISIS. Foreign fighters streaming into the conflict will increase, as the inevitable death of innocent Muslims will boost extremist and anti-Western sentiment abroad. Foreign funding will increase, as Syria and Iraq becomes the next arena for wealthy radical elites to take their jabs at Western forces. Finally and most critically, a new generation of terrorists will be born amongst the rubble and dust of desecrated homes.
Based on his short sighted plan of bombing for peace, it should be clear that Obama is far less different from Bush than he might think. In both leaders’ strategies lies a key realist error in combatting extremism, one which misses the vital role soft power can play in fighting terrorism. America and its allies must wake up to the fact that they cannot solve extremism and fundamentalism by precision airstrike, which continues to breed, and proliferate foreign terrorist organizations.
Until this happens the only remaining question in the War on Terror is this- who do we bomb next?