December 11, 2015 | The Weekly Standard

More of the Same

On December 6, Barack Obama addressed the nation from the Oval Office for just the third time in his tenure. The president sought to reassure the American people that he has a strategy for defeating ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), just days after supporters of the self-declared “caliphate” massacred 14 people at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California.

Given recent events, Obama could have announced a change of course. He could have said that the time has come to end, once and for all, ISIL's grip on its de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, and second city of Mosul, Iraq. Instead, the president simply offered a bullet point summary of what his administration has done to date. He also stressed, once again, that he would not deploy a significant number of American ground troops to combat ISIL's jihadists.

Look at the president's explanation carefully, however, and it quickly becomes apparent that his reasoning is ahistorical and specious.

“We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria,” Obama said. “That's what groups like ISIL want. They know they can't defeat us on the battlefield.”

If ISIL knows it “can't defeat” the American military, why would it “want” a ground war? Obama attempted to explain this contradiction: “ISIL fighters were part of the insurgency that we faced in Iraq. But they also know that if we occupy foreign lands, they can maintain insurgencies for years, killing thousands of our troops, draining our resources, and using our presence to draw new recruits.”

Obama is right that ISIL's fighters “faced” American troops in Iraq, but he neglected to mention that the jihadists' prospects once looked very grim. At the peak of its power in 2006, ISIL's predecessor, the Islamic State of Iraq (a front for al Qaeda), was gobbling up territory. By 2008, however, the jihadists had been pushed back, losing much of the ground they once controlled. This wasn't magic. It was the result of an American-led “surge” in forces and an uprising of Iraqis who wanted to end the jihadists' draconian rule. In his speech to the nation, Obama remembered the high cost paid by American soldiers, but said nothing of their accomplishments. Those soldiers are the reason the jihadists know they can't beat us.

ISIL's forerunner fought on but failed to regain the momentum it once enjoyed—until, that is, President Obama oversaw a complete withdrawal from Iraq. In October 2011, Obama announced he was bringing the Iraq war to a “responsible end.” Just two months later, the last U.S. forces left Iraqi soil.

Consider the scene at the time. The jihadists launched regular attacks throughout Iraq, killing hundreds. Their war was not over. But they were unable to take and hold ground. Their diminished strength was evident in their manpower.

According to the State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism for 2011, ISIL's predecessor could field only 1,000 to 2,000 fighters by the end of the year. Their presence was a problem—one we should have actively fought—but it was not a menace. By the end of 2014, the situation was dramatically worse. State's Country Reports on Terrorism for 2014 notes that ISIL could “muster between 20,000 and 31,500” fighters. Even this figure likely underestimates ISIL's roster, as its territorial gains throughout 2014 demanded additional personnel to manage its proto-state.

Thus, Obama's claim that ISIL would use “our presence to draw new recruits” is a nonstarter. The total number of ISIL fighters grew quickly (10 to 30 times over) in the three years after the Americans left.

Obama also introduced a straw man, portraying any ground deployment as an occupation that would allow ISIL to “maintain insurgencies for years, killing thousands of our troops, draining our resources.” An American deployment need not be a full-scale occupation of Iraq and Syria, which is impossible for many reasons. Any U.S.-led strategy should focus on identifying capable local forces willing to “occupy” the lands vacated by ISIL. This is what worked in the past, when American-backed tribes drove ISIL's forerunner out of western Iraq.

This is not to suggest that a more robust war effort would be easy or that the United States wouldn't suffer losses. The situation has become enormously complicated, with multiple actors, many of them hostile to the West, vying for power across Iraq and Syria. And as America has stood on the sidelines, thousands of potential Muslim allies against ISIL have been slaughtered.

But the president has already been forced to deploy some American boots in the region, and he should at least consider sending in more: 30,000 jihadists, or even double that number, cannot beat 30,000 American troops, backed by airpower, in a straight fight—which, Obama pointed out, ISIL knows.

The stakes are higher than the president acknowledges. On November 13, a suicide assault team dispatched by ISIL wreaked havoc in Paris, killing 130 people as they enjoyed a Friday night out in the City of Light. Throughout Europe, America's allies say it is only a matter of time until another attack is successful. On October 31, an ISIL branch in the Sinai blew up a civilian airliner carrying Russian and Ukrainian vacationers. All 224 passengers and crew members on board perished. It was the most devastating jihadist attack on civilian aviation since September 11, 2001.

The terrorists responsible for these attacks and a rising tide of violence throughout the Muslim-majority world share a common motivation. They believe that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has resurrected the long-awaited caliphate. Until this founding mythos is refuted, ISIL will continue to terrorize the world.

Some claim that an American invasion in northern Syria would validate ISIL's apocalyptic vision. ISIL regularly quotes Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who said: “The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify—by Allah's permission—until it burns the crusader armies in Dabiq [northern Syria].” This is a play on sayings attributed to Muhammad. The idea is that Allah has predestined the jihadists' confrontation with the West's “crusader armies” in the approximate area currently under ISIL's control.

But no messiah will save Baghdadi's forces from an American-led ground coalition. Zarqawi did not survive an American bomb in 2006, and his organization's prospects dimmed when the United States marshaled its resources to confront it head-on. It would be irrational to organize our policies around illogical prophecies.

Just as the jihadists look to Raqqa for inspiration, the civilized world still looks to America for leadership. ISIL has lost some ground, but the jihadists will not lose Raqqa or Mosul any time soon unless President Obama decides Baghdadi's men should feel the full brunt of American force. Therefore, ISIL's claim to have resurrected the caliphate will live on. And so will the violence ISIL's mythology inspires.

Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @thomasjoscelyn.

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Issues:

Syria