Posted on 01/16/2015 9:17:12 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The White House was dragged kicking and screaming into the war against ISIS. Politically and materially, the Obama administration saw few upsides to engaging in the fight against the brutish Islamist militants despite their rapid advance across Syria and Iraq in the spring and early summer of last year. The administration’s hand was forced when it appeared as though ISIS was poised to drive the Yazidi minority into extinction.
Even then, the White House only cautiously engaged in Iraq and utterly refused to take on the Islamic State in their Northern Syrian stronghold. Since then, the Islamic State has outgrown its nursery. What began as a containable civil war in Syria has expanded into a regional fight against an emboldened Islamist radical movement with battlefields ranging from West Africa to Southeast Asia and terrorist actors taking the fight to European, Canadian, and Australian soil.
When the president was forced to confront the reality that ISIS could not be halted in Iraq unless it was also challenged in Syria, the administration hatched a Rube Goldberg plan to address the Syrian threat that was so absurd it boggled the mind.
Initially, the Pentagon planned to identify moderate indigenous Syrian rebel forces with ideals that aligned as closely with those of Western countries as possible. Once those groups and individuals were thoroughly vetted, they would be removed from the Syrian theater and transported to third-party Arab countries where they would be trained and equipped. Once that process was complete, these rebels would be reintroduced into Syria to fight ISIS, but they were also expected to avoid engaging forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad’s government. The Pentagon thought this was a reasonable expectation even despite the fact that Assad’s brutality gave rise to the rebel movement in the first place.
It was perfectly asinine. Moreover, it was logistically implausible.
It is not clear that the White House and the Pentagon recognize the folly of this antiseptic approach to warfighting. On Friday, the Defense Department revealed that 400 American soldiers were heading to Syria to train Syrian rebel forces directly. Oddly, they have not entirely abandoned the involved processes outlined above:
The training mission is expected to begin in the spring at sites outside Syria, Colonel Steve Warren said. Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have offered to host the training.
The training program is a part of U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan to field local forces in Syria to halt and eventually roll back Islamic State fighters, while pounding them with airstrikes.
But the insurgency in Syria is now dominated by hardline Sunni Islamists, including both Islamic State and the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, complicating U.S. measures to find a suitable ally on the ground.
“The Pentagon has estimated that it can train more than 5,000 recruits in the first year under a $500 million program, and that up to 15,000 will be needed to retake areas of eastern Syria controlled by Islamic State,” Reuters reported.
Do the math.
While finally deploying American boots to Syria may speed up the process of degrading and destroying ISIS, the campaign is expected to outlive the Obama presidency. If America’s experience in Iraq is any guide, these 400 soldiers are only the first to deploy to Syria.
The Obama White House’s most urgent priority when it comes to confronting the threat posed by radical Islamic terrorism, it seems, is running out the clock. It will be up to the next administration to take the threat posed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria with the seriousness it deserves.
So they’re going over to train people who may or may not have been infiltrated by ISIS or Assad’s men? And those people being trained will be armed while the trainers may or may not be? Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
CAUTION! Smart Power In Progress!
“........They could just waltz across Syria as their opposition was off at training camp in the UAE or someplace.”.....
Perhaps that “someplace else” is right here on American soil.
This is being pushed by McStain and Miss Linday. Training “moderate” Syrian rebels to fight ISIS. Its insane.
Well, this is what you get from the Democrats...a foreign policy that is a mix of American Idol and The Antique Roadshow.
And JFK authorized the use of Rainbow Herbicides. Something the left always blames on Nixon...
Wow, I didn’t know that.
But you are right.
“Operation Ranch Hand began in early 1962. Individual spray runs had to be approved by President John F. Kennedy until November 1962, when Kennedy gave the authority to approve most spray runs to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam and the U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam.”
JFK, the Agent Orange President.
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