Is President Obama Doing The Same Mistake In Iraq That President Bush Did In 2003

President Barack Obama meets with his national security advisors in the Situation Room of the White House, Aug. 7, 2014. Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Richard Fontaine and Vance Serchuk, Defense One: Obama Needs an ISIS War Czar Before It’s Too Late

Obama’s ISIS fight looks more like Iraq in 2003 than in 2007, when military and civilian leaders were synced hip-to-hip.

With the Islamic State, or ISIS, still entrenched across a large swath of Iraq and Syria after a year of U.S.-led airstrikes, the Obama administration is under growing criticism for devoting insufficient resources to the war. Several experts now call for the U.S. to send additional trainers and advisers, under less restrictive rules of engagement, to support the Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish Peshmerga, and to intensify efforts to build a moderate Syrian rebel force.

These steps are essential, but also inadequate. While the fight against ISIS is under-resourced, it suffers from two equally grave failings: a disjointed command structure that makes civil-military unity of effort all but impossible, and the absence of an integrated campaign plan to defeat the enemy. Until both of these problems are tackled, more troops and weapons are unlikely by themselves to turn the tide.

WNU Editor: The problem with such a plan is that I do not see any real or significant political or public support for a greater U.S. involvement in the Middle East. And for President Obama, it will be a huge reversal from his stated policy since the beginning of his Presidency that he wanted U.S. troops out of the region. To reverse all of this would be a tacit admission that his policy has failed .... an impression hat he certainly does not want to leave with only 16 months left in his presidency.