OPINION_ Decision time on the Islamic State

The Seattle Times
Originally published Saturday, September 6, 2014 at 5:06 PM

Decision time on the Islamic State

Columnist Trudy Rubin writes about how the slayings of two American journalists by the Islamic State underscores the importance of stopping the movement.

By Trudy Rubin
Syndicated columnist

The beheading of a second American journalist on YouTube by Islamic State barbarians has finally focused U.S. attention on Syria.

The Islamic State’s sick, slick self-promotion — its global glorification of the murders of James Foley and Steven Sotloff — has done what 200,000 Syrian deaths and the growth of a new al-Qaida state failed to accomplish.

It brought home the risk of leaving these madmen free to develop their caliphate within huge chunks of Syria, even as U.S. air strikes push back their efforts in Iraq.

Americans are boiling. Congress is outraged. Vice President Joe Biden proclaims, “We will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice.”

This is a teachable moment, when President Barack Obama could recoup from last week’s “We don’t have a strategy yet” comment when asked about Syria. He could use these videos to illustrate the serious threat the Islamic State poses to Americans in the near term, a threat that could necessitate future U.S. air strikes on Islamic State camps or movements in Syria.

Yet I already see this opportunity draining away.

Everything the president has said since the release of the videos shows his reluctance to strike at the Islamic State safe haven in Syria.

Americans are weary of involvement in more Mideast wars, even as they criticize Obama for not showing enough leadership in the region. So it’s not surprising that Obama is calling for a global coalition against terrorism, a theme he will promote at the United Nations General Assembly session this month (where Russia and China are likely to block anything he suggests).

Obama also is sending Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to the Mideast next week.

These efforts are long overdue, but, unfortunately, they have their limits. Obama’s credibility among Mideast leaders is shot — in large part because of his famous reluctance to meet his own previous red lines and unleash promised air strikes after Syria’s leaders used poison gas.

Moreover, Mideast leaders are deeply divided, with the Sunnis of the Gulf lined up against Shiite leaders in Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Without a convincing show of will in combating the Islamic State, Obama won’t be able to nudge Arab leaders to do more.

Indeed, Arab leaders are likely to pursue their own, often counterproductive efforts to confront the Islamic State, without listening to Kerry. He may make headway in some areas — such as pressing the Saudis to fund the desperate needs of refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq. He can also lean on the Saudis, along with Kuwait and Qatar, to block private funders of radical Islamist factions in Syria. The Islamic State is now self-funding, however, having raised hundreds of millions from extortion, seized oil wells, and robbed banks.

Obama will have to decide if the Islamic State threat justifies unilateral U.S. action. He did unleash U.S. air strikes in Iraq, after Islamic State fighters seized Iraq’s second largest city and was threatening America’s Iraqi Kurdish allies.

In Syria, Obama has been far more reluctant to use air strikes, because there are no obvious allies — like Iraq’s Kurds — who could provide ground forces. Syria’s moderate Muslim and secular opposition militias have been decimated. And President Bashar al-Assad should not be enlisted as a partner. Not only is he a mass murderer, but he is also unwilling to confront the Islamic State.

So the president is confronted with a terrible dilemma. He said Wednesday that the U.S. objective is to “degrade and destroy (the Islamic State) so that it’s no longer a threat not just to Iraq but also to the region and to the United States.”

Yet a global antiterrorist coalition is an impossible dream. Obama must keep providing air cover in Iraq for the Kurds and any coherent Iraqi forces. But without degrading Islamic State training camps and movement in Syria with U.S. air strikes, the group will continue to expand.

This means Obama must make a decision: He said on Wednesday that before sending pilots to do a job, he should “know that this is a mission that’s going to work.” If by “work” he means destroying the Islamic State, then air strikes are insufficient. But if Obama’s goal is to “degrade” the Islamic State and halt its momentum, then those strikes are essential.

Right now, the Islamic State is the hottest jihadi movement worldwide. Its videos help recruit thousands of Western volunteers, who can return home and wreak havoc. The deaths of Foley and Sotloff provide a gruesome warning that Islamic State aggression must be stopped.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Email: trubin@phillynews.com 

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