Obama’s ‘Strategy’ Has No Chance of Success

The Weekly Standard ^ | 9/10/2014 | FREDERICK W. KAGAN and KIMBERLY KAGAN

[mojito]

President Obama just announced that he is bringing a counter-terrorism strategy to an insurgency fight. He was at pains to repeat the phrase “counter-terror” four times in a short speech. Noting that ISIL is not a state (partly because the international community thankfully does not recognize it), he declared, “ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.” Neither of those sentences, unfortunately, is true.

ISIL is an insurgent group that controls enormous territory in Iraq and Syria that it governs. It maneuvers conventional light infantry forces supported by vehicles mounting machine guns and occasionally armored personnel carriers against the regular forces of the Iraqi Army and the Kurdish Peshmerga—and wins.

It is purely and simply not a terrorist organization any longer. Neither is it the simple manifestation of nihilistic evil the president makes out.

ISIL has described a very clear vision of seizing control of all of the territory of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories. It intends to abolish all of the borders and redraw them according to a new structure of governance suitable to its hateful version of an old Islamic heresy. That vision also makes it more than a simple terrorist organization. It’s awfully hard to develop a sound strategy when you start by mis-diagnosing the problem so profoundly. That’s why the “strategy” the president just announced has no chance of success.

[Windflier]

Would be kinda funny if Osama wasn’t dead and he was the leader of ISIS.

I was never completely convinced that Obama got Bin Laden. Never in history has such a high profile bad guy been nabbed without photos of his dead carcass being splashed across the world to prove it to one and all.

On top of that, they claimed to have buried him at sea. How convenient. We're just supposed to take Obama's word that it really went down the way he says it did.

Right.

I trust Obama's account about as much as I trust his fake birth certificate and every other despicable lie he's told.

My two cent theory is that Obama relocated Bin Laden to a safe place to live out his days, then concocted the whole story about 'getting' him. Seal Team 6 had to be destroyed after that, so they could never tell the truth of what really went down.

[nathanbedford]

Your analysis beautifully explains Obama's foreign policy and I find nothing in it with which to disagree. I would like to point out that there are other possibilities which explain both his foreign policy and his domestic policy.

Dinesh D'Souza has produced a persuasive film to the effect that Obama has simply adopted the anti-colonialist mentality of his natural father and that explains his support of, "the “true voice” of Muslim peoples throwing off the yoke of the post-colonial capitalist west and their own secular tyrannies."

Other observers have suggested that Obama's affiliation with the Louis Farrakhan is more extensive than has been made known and that explains his foreign policy as well as portions of his domestic policy.

I have long thought that Obama is essentially a communist and he is adopting the Communist line of supporting insurgencies against the capitalist structure. I note that Obama's natural father was a communist as was, no doubt, his mother, his mentor Frank Marshall Davis, and a host of other "Marxist professors" and academics he has admittedly associated with in his career. I think the Communist explanation has the advantage of being the better explanation for Obama's domestic policies but it is weaker when it comes to explaining Obamas bowing and scraping to the Saudis. The problem with my analysis is that ultimately communism is mortally incompatible with Islam, despite the fact that Islam in many areas adopt a fascist/communist regime, and one must defeat the other in a final death struggle.

Perhaps Obama is merely a strange if toxic concoction of all of these elements which bubble up to the surface as his narcissism makes convenient.

Thank you for your thoughtful post.

[AlanGreenSpam]

My sense is you are right unfortunately. At least we need to threaten to turn their land into glass the next time we are attacked 9/11 style.

As the saying goes, “Sometimes it’s better to be feared than respected.”

Bork Obunga wants to be “respected” by everyone in the world, but when dealing with EVIL, he has to learn that he has to grow up and realize that they will never respect us or like us. Period.

[Rummyfan]

It’s awfully hard to develop a sound strategy when you start by mis-diagnosing the problem so profoundly. That’s why the “strategy” the president just announced has no chance of success.

Yep....

[Rummyfan]

Marking thanks!

[Rummyfan]

Many of us believe that Obama's true aim is the undermining of America as a force for good in the world to facilitate the triumph of his one world socialist utopia. Others believe that he is a Manchurian Muslim actually implementing treasonous policy on behalf of a Muslim jihad.

Well, when we get hit again - and I deliberately say when and not if - there's going to be hell to pay.

[mojito]

While 0bama’s ties to communists and communist ideology is readily apparent, as you demonstrate, for anyone who cares to look, his relationship with Islam remains murky, though obviously important to understanding his political beliefs and actions.

I have a pet conjecture about this, but one that could never be confirmed except by the most assiduous biographer or by 0bama himself. My theory, such as it is, is that even though 0bama was a small boy of 9-10 at the time, his involvement with Islam while in Indonesia was more intense and character-shaping than has been acknowledged. That he became a devote practicing Muslim, under the guidance of some imam or figure at his school, and that it was this intense involvement with Islam that compelled his mother to send him back to Hawaii to reside with his grandparents (and their communist friends - as an aside, isn't it odd that a woman who was supposedly the vice president of a bank - as 0bama’s grandmother allegedly was - should openly associate with a notorious communist like Frank Marshall Davis?)

I could expound further on this pet theory but will decline, except to observe that there is no figure in our political history about whom we know less - because he has deliberately obscured his past at every turn - than this sinister figure who calls himself 0bama.

[nathanbedford]

Because as you point out Obama has so deliberately obscured his past, he opens himself to all manner of speculation. For example, his trip to Pakistan might have been more than a Islamic pilgrimage, it might have bizarrely combined Islam with a gay guys road trip.

Within Obama's obscure past there is evidence that he is homosexual, that he is partial to the Muslim brotherhood, that he has made a speech in favor of his benefactor, a Saudi Arabian Muslim functionary.

Small wonder that you describe him as "sinister."