A.B. Stoddard: Obama’s ISIS battle

It turns out President Obama gets it. That the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a grave threat, that his air campaign may not be working well, that changes may be required and that Congress must participate in waging war. Obama hasn’t said this out loud, but his request for a new authorization for use of military force (AUMF) acknowledges the threat, provides the means to confront it, denies the enemy safe haven and rightfully requires a new president and Congress to reassess the operation when he leaves office.

The draft AUMF bans “enduring offensive combat operations” but includes no geographic boundaries. It repeals the authorization for military action in Iraq that passed the Congress in 2002 but retains the broad powers the executive branch has to combat terrorists that Congress passed in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The new parameters are realistic — a deployment of occupying ground forces isn’t supported by Democrats, the public or a majority of the GOP, but the plan would clearly allow flexibility for the use of limited and targeted ground forces that do not “endure” beyond 2017.

{mosads}Most notably, the administration has consulted closely with the Congress on the AUMF, which represents a significant shift, because both Republicans and Democrats have long complained that the president and his staff have rarely engaged the Congress in negotiations on legislative proposals. 

Predictably, bipartisan criticism was swift; for some it’s too open-ended, for others too narrow. Arizona Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told ABC News the plan ties the hands of commanders on the ground and said, “it has never happened, and never will as long as I’m able to breathe.”

Obama has faced increasingly vocal criticism from his Republican adversaries, but also from some Democrats, about the burgeoning national security crises that have metastasized in the six years since he was elected. Since the allied air campaign against ISIS began in August, the terrorist group has succeeded in nearly tripling the amount of territory it has amassed in Syria; a Russian incursion into eastern Ukraine has continued unfettered; a coup in Yemen has toppled the government that had partnered with the United States to combat al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and other terrorist factions there; and Afghanistan remains so unstable a planned drawdown is likely to be delayed a second time. Lawmakers are now questioning whether the current strategy only contains ISIS but fails to defeat it. 

The administration may have accepted that changes must be made. While Obama, in recent days, has stated he “absolutely” believes the media hypes the terrorist threat, his request to Congress is an invitation for a national debate on his handling of ISIS. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said of the new AUMF language: “The president believes this sort of strikes the right balance of enforcing what he has indicated is our policy, while preserving the ability to make some adjustments if necessary.”

The debate over a strategy against ISIS will last months, and many members of Congress will be loath to put themselves on the record authorizing a third U.S. war in the Middle East in just 15 years. At that point, an AUMF could look a lot different than the president’s proposal. But since his lands somewhere in the middle, it’s not likely to.

Obama asked Congress to pass the authorization in order to “show the world we are united in our resolve” to combat the threat of ISIS. Members of both parties should work quickly to unite around a plan. Until and unless there is consensus, the United States isn’t showing the world the resolve a years-long battle against ISIS will require.

Stoddard is an associate editor of The Hill.