President Obama Has Not Fulfilled His Promise To End America's Wars

President Obama, meeting Thursday with his National Security Council, wants more intelligence experts to see information intercepted by the National Security Agency. Credit Zach Gibson/The New York Times

Edward Delmand, The Atlantic: Obama Promised to End America’s Wars—Has He?

The president’s military record, by the numbers

In his recent cover story for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg notes that when Barack Obama first entered the White House, with George W. Bush’s long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ongoing, “he was not seeking new dragons to slay.” Just the opposite: He fit the mold, Goldberg argues, of a “retrenchment president” elected to scale back America’s commitments overseas and shift responsibilities to allies. But you could be forgiven for thinking the dragons have stubbornly remained, and even multiplied, on Obama’s watch.

To cite just some recent examples: In October, the president authorized the first sustained deployment of U.S. special-operations forces to Syria to complement his air campaign against the Islamic State. In January, reports emerged that the Obama administration was rethinking its troop drawdown in Afghanistan, given the deteriorating security situation there, and considering sending more troops to Iraq and Syria. The next month, Obama released a defense budget that included an increase of $2.5 billion over the previous year to expand the fight with ISIS to North and West Africa, and billions more for sending heavy weapons, armored vehicles, and other equipment to Eastern and Central Europe to counter Russian aggression. In the past several weeks alone, we’ve learned of Pentagon plans to dispatch military advisers to Nigeria against the jihadist group Boko Haram and to launch an aerial offensive in Libya against the Islamic State. U.S. bombing raids recently killed 150 suspected militants in Somalia and over 40 in Libya. By one measure, in fact, the U.S. military is now actively engaged in more countries than when Obama took office.

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WNU Editor: President Obama has not fulfilled his pledge to end America's wars .... how could he .... many of the world's conflicts will still be occurring with or without U.S. participation. If anything .... with U.S. special-operations forces now deployed in 133 countries .... our wars are now being fought in secret and/or in the shadows, away from the media spotlight and public debate ....and these  conflicts are growing.