Daniel Larison writes:
A recent CIA study concluded that
arming insurgents has rarely been successful in defeating foreign governments:
The still-classified review, one of several C.I.A.
studies commissioned in 2012 and 2013 in the midst of the Obama
administration’s protracted debate about whether to wade into the Syrian civil
war, concluded that many past attempts by the agency to arm foreign forces
covertly had a minimal impact on the long-term outcome of a conflict. They were
even less effective, the report found, when the militias fought without any
direct American support on the ground.
That isn’t surprising, since this is one of the points that opponents of arming rebels in Syria have made repeatedly over the last three years.
To the extent that arming anti-regime forces early on could have “worked” at all, it would have added to the war’s death toll, but probably would not have changed the course of the conflict.
This report makes Obama’s decision and Congress’ recent vote to provide arms and training to the “moderate” opposition look even worse than they already did.
The administration has known very well for some time that this policy would most likely be useless, but that hasn’t stopped Obama from going along with it to some extent anyway.
This suggests that Obama has endorsed a policy that he knows doesn’t make sense and isn’t likely to succeed on its own terms.
I suspect that he has done this so that he can throw his hawkish critics a bone in a vain effort to get them to be quiet for a little while.
Of course, this doesn’t placate the hawkish critics, and it gives them an excuse to claim vindication that they don’t deserve.
Meanwhile, it traps the administration into following through with a policy that no one–including Obama–expects to succeed.
That isn’t surprising, since this is one of the points that opponents of arming rebels in Syria have made repeatedly over the last three years.
To the extent that arming anti-regime forces early on could have “worked” at all, it would have added to the war’s death toll, but probably would not have changed the course of the conflict.
This report makes Obama’s decision and Congress’ recent vote to provide arms and training to the “moderate” opposition look even worse than they already did.
The administration has known very well for some time that this policy would most likely be useless, but that hasn’t stopped Obama from going along with it to some extent anyway.
This suggests that Obama has endorsed a policy that he knows doesn’t make sense and isn’t likely to succeed on its own terms.
I suspect that he has done this so that he can throw his hawkish critics a bone in a vain effort to get them to be quiet for a little while.
Of course, this doesn’t placate the hawkish critics, and it gives them an excuse to claim vindication that they don’t deserve.
Meanwhile, it traps the administration into following through with a policy that no one–including Obama–expects to succeed.
And
Kori Schake notes the
gap between Obama’s rhetoric about the war against ISIS and the means he is
willing to use:
But the case President Obama makes for war against the
Islamic State is apocalyptic — the United States is absolutely invested in
defeating ISIL, he claims. Obama believes we will win through very limited
means, not that we have very limited interest in the outcome, which was
Eisenhower’s view.
Obama’s problem here is that he has committed the U.S. to maximalist goal that isn’t necessary for U.S. security.
He can’t justify a larger commitment of U.S. forces, because the war isn’t being fought for self-defense or even for the defense of real U.S. allies.
Nonetheless, he still feels compelled to engage in rhetorical overkill to make military action seem like the right response, and as a sop to the hawks he says that the U.S. intends to “destroy” the group when he probably knows that this isn’t possible at an acceptable cost.
Obama may realize that the war isn’t necessary for U.S. security, and has acknowledged that there is no direct threat to the U.S. that needs to be countered.
That is one reason why he hasn’t yet yielded to the pressure for further escalation.
Unfortunately, he has trapped himself again with careless rhetoric that hawks are now using to demand a larger, more costly intervention, and he can’t get out of the trap without repudiating many of the things he has already said about this war.
One of the more telling comments Obama made about this came in the 60 Minutes interview late last month. He once again fell back on American exceptionalist claptrap to defend the decision to intervene: “That’s how we [Americans] roll.”
Someone at the White House must have thought this was very clever, since it is the portion of the interview that they chose to highlight on the official website.
Whether he has embraced this nonsense in order to counter the charges that he doesn’t believe in a certain type of American exceptionalism, or whether he has done this because he genuinely believes it, the effect is the same: the U.S. is drawn into fighting wars that it doesn’t need to fight to uphold the vain conceit that America is “indispensable.”
The truth is that the U.S. has little at stake in the fight against ISIS, but Obama can’t admit that without rejecting the “indispensable nation” conceit that he has relied on to support many of his worst foreign policy decisions.
Obama’s problem here is that he has committed the U.S. to maximalist goal that isn’t necessary for U.S. security.
He can’t justify a larger commitment of U.S. forces, because the war isn’t being fought for self-defense or even for the defense of real U.S. allies.
Nonetheless, he still feels compelled to engage in rhetorical overkill to make military action seem like the right response, and as a sop to the hawks he says that the U.S. intends to “destroy” the group when he probably knows that this isn’t possible at an acceptable cost.
Obama may realize that the war isn’t necessary for U.S. security, and has acknowledged that there is no direct threat to the U.S. that needs to be countered.
That is one reason why he hasn’t yet yielded to the pressure for further escalation.
Unfortunately, he has trapped himself again with careless rhetoric that hawks are now using to demand a larger, more costly intervention, and he can’t get out of the trap without repudiating many of the things he has already said about this war.
One of the more telling comments Obama made about this came in the 60 Minutes interview late last month. He once again fell back on American exceptionalist claptrap to defend the decision to intervene: “That’s how we [Americans] roll.”
Someone at the White House must have thought this was very clever, since it is the portion of the interview that they chose to highlight on the official website.
Whether he has embraced this nonsense in order to counter the charges that he doesn’t believe in a certain type of American exceptionalism, or whether he has done this because he genuinely believes it, the effect is the same: the U.S. is drawn into fighting wars that it doesn’t need to fight to uphold the vain conceit that America is “indispensable.”
The truth is that the U.S. has little at stake in the fight against ISIS, but Obama can’t admit that without rejecting the “indispensable nation” conceit that he has relied on to support many of his worst foreign policy decisions.
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