Obama's Foreign Policy Hunger Games of 2014

The “Capital” in Washington and their tributes come in the form of Special Operations Forces and Intelligence operatives sent abroad to execute a short-sighted foreign policy plan. DC’s own death match, it’s time to put an end to Washington’s version of the Hunger Games. The reaping started under George W Bush and has continued, some could argue more aggressively, under President Obama.

What has been accomplished since 9-11-01 to make the world safer against violent terrorism? Is America in better shape at home and abroad? Has Al Qaeda been defeated? The Taliban? Will ISIS be defeated with business as usual? Good questions to ask yourself and your elected officials.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. It’s time for new solutions and new leadership.

Please read and share the excerpt below. If you’re really motivated, send The ISIS Solution to your local political representative and let them know that change is coming.

The ISIS Solution

By: Brandon Webb, Jack Murphy, Peter Nealen and the Editors of SOFREP.com

Excerpt from Chapter 1

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.—2009 Nobel Committee Statement

The irony of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is also not lost on the editors of SOFREP.com. While his predecessor admittedly did him no favors with the lack of planning post–Iraq invasion, Obama’s supporters cannot ignore that he has waged a secret war across the globe that has led to destabilization in states like Libya, and civil war in Iraq and Syria. The president’s supporters have to deal with the harsh reality that if there were a Nobel War Prize, Obama would be a clear choice for the nomination today.

The president recently announced that we don’t have a strategy for dealing with ISIS.

It’s too soon to say what steps the United States will take against ISIS in Syria. “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” Obama told reporters during a White House news briefing. “We don’t have a strategy yet.”—CNN, September 4, 2014

If we have been in a war against terror for more than a decade and still don’t have solid strategies for dealing with radical terrorism, then what have we really been doing the last thirteen years? It’s a good question to ask yourself, and at least the president was telling the truth when he said we don’t have a strategy for ISIS.

Excerpt from Chapter 4. Large-Scale Military Action Against ISIS

Before taking any potential action taken against ISIS, the president has to consider both international and domestic American politics. He also has to weigh the consequences of any action considered against taking no action at all. Before looking at potential uses of military force against ISIS, it is worthwhile looking at the requisite considerations prior to even reaching that point.

One of the quirks of democratic governments is that, unlike dictatorships, the presidents of free nations have to make direct appeals to their citizens and garner public support for their actions. Deep into Obama’s second term, his administration has displayed a schizophrenic foreign policy that seeks to defer decisions on any and all international crises. Essentially, the Obama administration is “kicking the can down the road” for the next administration. The crisis in Iraq and Syria has now reached a breaking point, however, and kicking the can is more unpopular than picking it up and doing something with it.

Indeed, failure to take action against ISIS at this juncture will result in consequences almost too horrifying to contemplate. The humanitarian crisis, which ISIS has created, already stretches across Kurdistan, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. ISIS has created more than three million refugees. It has killed and executed civilians, including men, women, and children, on a scale that can legitimately be described as genocide. ISIS has sexually enslaved women and girls as young as nine. The human rights crisis in the region has spiraled out of control.

Refusing to take action against ISIS will ensure that it continues to capture territory across the Middle East. As ISIS grows in strength with each successful battle, it will set up the infrastructure of something resembling a functional state. That is to say, it will become a self-funded organization making millions of dollars from oil revenue. Left unchecked, it is hard to say how powerful it could become. The dream of a pan-Islamic caliphate is most certainly beyond its reach; however, it could carve out a very large swath of the Middle East for its empire.

Perhaps the most frightening scenario is if ISIS is able to capture Baghdad and unseat what is left of a functional Iraqi government, and then heads south to Saudi Arabia. If ISIS were to capture the two most holy sites of the Islamic faith, Mecca and Medina, the entire Middle East might very well implode.

In order to take military action against ISIS, Obama has been slowly warming the U.S. public toward the inevitable reality of troops on the ground in Iraq (once again) and in Syria. As early as 2012, the Pentagon spun up the 75th Ranger Regiment for a short-notice deployment to Syria in order to secure weapons of mass destruction sites. The president was preparing for a direct military confrontation with Assad’s forces, but for reasons not completely known, the attack was called off. Considering the amount of weight the administration places on public opinion polls, and the fact that we were in the middle of Obama’s reelection campaign, it seems likely that the president did not feel he had enough public support for the action at that time.

As the ISIS threat continued to grow throughout 2013 and 2014, Obama spoke publicly about military options in dealing with it. First, he mentioned providing weapons to the Kurds, then supplying training and advisers to the Iraqi government, and finally he escalated to air strikes. As of this writing in late October 2014, the notion of an overt U.S. military presence on the ground is already being dangled in front of the American consciousness.

Obama is waiting to gain sufficient popular support for the war against ISIS. Once he has it, he will use American military force to directly combat ISIS on the ground in Syria and Iraq.

With the campaign to sensitize the American public to another war in Iraq under way, the administration also has to consider the international scene. Any action taken in the world against America or American interests is considered a win by adversarial nations, namely, Russia and China. These two nations have openly helped the Assad regime, but more frightening is the question of to what extent they have also helped ISIS, in the same way the CIA helps other “causes” globally. An American military engagement against ISIS may well turn into a proxy war between global powers.

America must build an international coalition against ISIS. Yes, we could “go it alone,” but the war will appear, and will actually be, more legitimate with a coalition of partners who want to see the destruction of ISIS. This coalition will have the most clout if it includes not only Western nations but Arab and predominantly Muslim nations as well. The September 2014 air campaign was the trial balloon for a larger and more robust coalition force to be set up at a future date.

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Thank you,

The Editors of SOFREP.com