Calling to Account Obama’s ISIS War: Jed Babbin
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/13/jed-babbin-calling-to-account-obamas-isis-war/
If military advisers don’t plan to win it, Congress shouldn’t authorize it.
It probably won’t be, but the first item on the lame-duck congressional agenda should be the military action in which we are now engaged against the Islamic State, or ISIS. Congress has no more serious responsibility than to examine the policy and goals behind any action that puts American lives at risk. Thursday’s appearance of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey before the House Armed Services Committee should be only the beginning.
Not that Congress does that all or even most of the time our military is engaged in conflict. Over our hundreds of years of history, Congress has declared war only 11 times. Without declarations of war, we’ve nevertheless fought major wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice) and engaged in smaller military actions dozens of times. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress twice passed “authorizations for the use of military force” first against al Qaeda and then for the Iraq invasion, but in neither case actually declared war.
Congress passed the 1973 War Powers Act by overriding President Nixon’s veto. Nixon’s successors have generally followed it without admitting to its constitutionality. President Obama, in accordance with the War Powers Act, notified Congress when he ordered the commencement of the air campaign against the Islamic State.
We’re already hearing members of Congress, beginning predictably with Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, say the ISIS war is illegal because it has exceeded the 90-day limit imposed by the War Powers Act, ignoring the probable unconstitutionality of that congressional action.
Regardless of the act’s constitutionality, Congress should organize a careful examination of the ISIS campaign, hold hearings on it in both the Senate and the House, and bring a bill on the war to a vote before going home for Christmas.
The examination of the president’s plans and actions needs to be thorough. The Joint Chiefs of Staff should testify on their individual opinions of the actions, the plans, and the probable outcomes of the war. We know there are a lot of holes in Mr. Obama’s plans, and they need to be aired in public.
Soon after the president said he didn’t have a strategy to defeat the Islamic State, the military action began. Ever since, whatever strategy the Pentagon was employing has been questionable.
Owing to his refusal to authorize American troops to take on a combat role (which he shouldn’t do because we’ve done all we can in Iraq), one key to Mr. Obama’s plan is to organize a surrogate force of moderate Syrians to oppose ISIS forces. According to Pentagon spokesmen, though, doing so will consume nearly a year. It will take at least three or four months to vet the Syrian troops to try to weed out ISIS infiltrators. (There are no good guys in the Syrian fight, so how you can tell a good bad guy from a bad bad guy is not apparent.) Then it will take another six months or more to train them. What is going to happen in the interim?
Our Kurdish allies have been almost begging for heavy weapons, practically since the fight began. The flow of small arms to them has begun, but what plan does the Obama administration have to give them the heavier arms they apparently need?
We know Mr. Obama wrote to Iranian leaders, asking about the war against the Islamic State in the context of the ongoing nuclear-weapons negotiations. Did he offer some concession on nuclear weapons to get cooperation against ISIS?
Most importantly, the president has said repeatedly that this war won’t end in weeks or months. It’s not enough that Mr. Obama evidently wants to leave this war to his successor. Congress needs to find out what will it take to actually win.
That is the most important question to which Congress should seek an answer. Americans are, we are often told, a war-weary people. We are, but not in the way most journalists assume.
We have been at war in Afghanistan for 13 years, and in Iraq — interrupted by Mr. Obama’s withdrawal in 2011 — for 11. Americans are war-weary of endless conflicts that can’t or won’t be brought to a decisive conclusion. What plan does Mr. Obama have to actually win the fight against the Islamic State, and what will it take to do so?
Under the rules of the Armed Services committees going back to at least the 1990s, the Joint Chiefs were required, before they testified, to sign a certification that their testimony would state their personal opinions, not the political views of the administration then in power. That rule, if it’s no longer in place, should be revived and the certifications obtained. Congress needs to hear straight answers to its questions, not some administration-directed political baloney.
The case for the ISIS war may be strong, but not unless there is a strategy to actually win it. Mr. Obama’s principal military advisers and Mr. Hagel should be required to testify and outline a plan that is, in their judgment, going to produce a decisive result.
It probably won’t be, but the first item on the lame-duck congressional agenda should be the military action in which we are now engaged against the Islamic State, or ISIS. Congress has no more serious responsibility than to examine the policy and goals behind any action that puts American lives at risk. Thursday’s appearance of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey before the House Armed Services Committee should be only the beginning.
Not that Congress does that all or even most of the time our military is engaged in conflict. Over our hundreds of years of history, Congress has declared war only 11 times. Without declarations of war, we’ve nevertheless fought major wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice) and engaged in smaller military actions dozens of times. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress twice passed “authorizations for the use of military force” first against al Qaeda and then for the Iraq invasion, but in neither case actually declared war.
Congress passed the 1973 War Powers Act by overriding President Nixon’s veto. Nixon’s successors have generally followed it without admitting to its constitutionality. President Obama, in accordance with the War Powers Act, notified Congress when he ordered the commencement of the air campaign against the Islamic State.
We’re already hearing members of Congress, beginning predictably with Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, say the ISIS war is illegal because it has exceeded the 90-day limit imposed by the War Powers Act, ignoring the probable unconstitutionality of that congressional action.
Regardless of the act’s constitutionality, Congress should organize a careful examination of the ISIS campaign, hold hearings on it in both the Senate and the House, and bring a bill on the war to a vote before going home for Christmas.
The examination of the president’s plans and actions needs to be thorough. The Joint Chiefs of Staff should testify on their individual opinions of the actions, the plans, and the probable outcomes of the war. We know there are a lot of holes in Mr. Obama’s plans, and they need to be aired in public.
Soon after the president said he didn’t have a strategy to defeat the Islamic State, the military action began. Ever since, whatever strategy the Pentagon was employing has been questionable.
Owing to his refusal to authorize American troops to take on a combat role (which he shouldn’t do because we’ve done all we can in Iraq), one key to Mr. Obama’s plan is to organize a surrogate force of moderate Syrians to oppose ISIS forces. According to Pentagon spokesmen, though, doing so will consume nearly a year. It will take at least three or four months to vet the Syrian troops to try to weed out ISIS infiltrators. (There are no good guys in the Syrian fight, so how you can tell a good bad guy from a bad bad guy is not apparent.) Then it will take another six months or more to train them. What is going to happen in the interim?
Our Kurdish allies have been almost begging for heavy weapons, practically since the fight began. The flow of small arms to them has begun, but what plan does the Obama administration have to give them the heavier arms they apparently need?
We know Mr. Obama wrote to Iranian leaders, asking about the war against the Islamic State in the context of the ongoing nuclear-weapons negotiations. Did he offer some concession on nuclear weapons to get cooperation against ISIS?
Most importantly, the president has said repeatedly that this war won’t end in weeks or months. It’s not enough that Mr. Obama evidently wants to leave this war to his successor. Congress needs to find out what will it take to actually win.
That is the most important question to which Congress should seek an answer. Americans are, we are often told, a war-weary people. We are, but not in the way most journalists assume.
We have been at war in Afghanistan for 13 years, and in Iraq — interrupted by Mr. Obama’s withdrawal in 2011 — for 11. Americans are war-weary of endless conflicts that can’t or won’t be brought to a decisive conclusion. What plan does Mr. Obama have to actually win the fight against the Islamic State, and what will it take to do so?
Under the rules of the Armed Services committees going back to at least the 1990s, the Joint Chiefs were required, before they testified, to sign a certification that their testimony would state their personal opinions, not the political views of the administration then in power. That rule, if it’s no longer in place, should be revived and the certifications obtained. Congress needs to hear straight answers to its questions, not some administration-directed political baloney.
The case for the ISIS war may be strong, but not unless there is a strategy to actually win it. Mr. Obama’s principal military advisers and Mr. Hagel should be required to testify and outline a plan that is, in their judgment, going to produce a decisive result.
It probably won’t be, but the first item on the lame-duck congressional agenda should be the military action in which we are now engaged against the Islamic State, or ISIS. Congress has no more serious responsibility than to examine the policy and goals behind any action that puts American lives at risk. Thursday’s appearance of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey before the House Armed Services Committee should be only the beginning.
Not that Congress does that all or even most of the time our military is engaged in conflict. Over our hundreds of years of history, Congress has declared war only 11 times. Without declarations of war, we’ve nevertheless fought major wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice) and engaged in smaller military actions dozens of times. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress twice passed “authorizations for the use of military force” first against al Qaeda and then for the Iraq invasion, but in neither case actually declared war.
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Congress passed the 1973 War Powers Act by overriding President Nixon’s veto. Nixon’s successors have generally followed it without admitting to its constitutionality. President Obama, in accordance with the War Powers Act, notified Congress when he ordered the commencement of the air campaign against the Islamic State.
We’re already hearing members of Congress, beginning predictably with Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, say the ISIS war is illegal because it has exceeded the 90-day limit imposed by the War Powers Act, ignoring the probable unconstitutionality of that congressional action.
Regardless of the act’s constitutionality, Congress should organize a careful examination of the ISIS campaign, hold hearings on it in both the Senate and the House, and bring a bill on the war to a vote before going home for Christmas.
The examination of the president’s plans and actions needs to be thorough. The Joint Chiefs of Staff should testify on their individual opinions of the actions, the plans, and the probable outcomes of the war. We know there are a lot of holes in Mr. Obama’s plans, and they need to be aired in public.
Soon after the president said he didn’t have a strategy to defeat the Islamic State, the military action began. Ever since, whatever strategy the Pentagon was employing has been questionable.
Owing to his refusal to authorize American troops to take on a combat role (which he shouldn’t do because we’ve done all we can in Iraq), one key to Mr. Obama’s plan is to organize a surrogate force of moderate Syrians to oppose ISIS forces. According to Pentagon spokesmen, though, doing so will consume nearly a year. It will take at least three or four months to vet the Syrian troops to try to weed out ISIS infiltrators. (There are no good guys in the Syrian fight, so how you can tell a good bad guy from a bad bad guy is not apparent.) Then it will take another six months or more to train them. What is going to happen in the interim?
Our Kurdish allies have been almost begging for heavy weapons, practically since the fight began. The flow of small arms to them has begun, but what plan does the Obama administration have to give them the heavier arms they apparently need?
We know Mr. Obama wrote to Iranian leaders, asking about the war against the Islamic State in the context of the ongoing nuclear-weapons negotiations. Did he offer some concession on nuclear weapons to get cooperation against ISIS?
Most importantly, the president has said repeatedly that this war won’t end in weeks or months. It’s not enough that Mr. Obama evidently wants to leave this war to his successor. Congress needs to find out what will it take to actually win.
That is the most important question to which Congress should seek an answer. Americans are, we are often told, a war-weary people. We are, but not in the way most journalists assume.
We have been at war in Afghanistan for 13 years, and in Iraq — interrupted by Mr. Obama’s withdrawal in 2011 — for 11. Americans are war-weary of endless conflicts that can’t or won’t be brought to a decisive conclusion. What plan does Mr. Obama have to actually win the fight against the Islamic State, and what will it take to do so?
Under the rules of the Armed Services committees going back to at least the 1990s, the Joint Chiefs were required, before they testified, to sign a certification that their testimony would state their personal opinions, not the political views of the administration then in power. That rule, if it’s no longer in place, should be revived and the certifications obtained. Congress needs to hear straight answers to its questions, not some administration-directed political baloney.
The case for the ISIS war may be strong, but not unless there is a strategy to actually win it. Mr. Obama’s principal military advisers and Mr. Hagel should be required to testify and outline a plan that is, in their judgment, going to produce a decisive result.
If they cannot — and that is almost a certainty — Congress should not authorize any further military action. If, as Clemenceau said, war is too important to be left to the generals, it is far too important to leave to those who cannot chart a path to victory.
Jed Babbin is a former deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration and co-author of “The Sunni Vanguard” (London Center for Public Policy, 2014).
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/13/jed-babbin-calling-to-account-obamas-isis-war/#ixzz3J3L4wE6d
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