Fighting continues over the main highway between Samarra and Tikrit but I gather the road is under government control with ISIL launching raids in an effort to seize control of the road. This seems remarkably similar to attempts by supporters of Micheal Brown to seize control of Interstate 70 (I-70) near St Louis, USA last night.
The situation in Iraq though has been subdued in recent days while everyone waited for US President Barack Obama to make his big speech last night laying out his strategy to combat ISIL. We now know that strategy has four main elements;
The first element is to continue humanitarian aid to those in Iraq displaced by ISIL and fighting in general. This really requires no further discussion by me. However I feel I should point out that this isn't really an effort to combat ISIL as an attempt to mitigate the damage they continue to cause.
The second element of the strategy is to change the US Rules of Engagement (RoE) in Iraq. US forces are now no longer limited to only acting against ISIL in circumstances where US citizens are under threat. This allows them to directly attack ISIL forces in Iraq without having to jump through political hoops by say having to argue that ISIL control of a dam presents a threat to Americans because destroying the dam would create a tsunami type wave that can be used as a weapon. The only worrying aspect of this element is that due to Obama's conduct so far there is no guarantee that changing the RoE will actually lead to an increase in the intensity of military action against ISIL.
The third element is to allow US forces to attack ISIL within Syria which is much more controversial. In legal terms the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has passed a Chapter 7 resolution against ISIL and Al Nusra Front (ANF) which allows them to be attacked anywhere regardless of international borders. In practical terms though Syria has advanced air-defence systems. So if the US wants to operate within Syria it will either have to come to an arrangement with the secular Syrian government which the US has spent the last 3 years trying to overthrow or declare war on the Syrian government by attacking its air-defence systems before it attacks ISIL. That second option may well be in violation of international law and will certainly have the immediate effect of strengthening ISIL.
The fourth element of the plan is to fund and train insurgents already operating in Syria in the hope they will fight ISIL. Although no military force can be defeated by air-strikes alone the premise for this element of the plan is deeply flawed. The situation with ISIL in Syria is simply not the same as the situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban - Afghanistan's de facto government - tolerated Al Qaeda and allowed them to operate freely. By contrast ISIL are simply not welcome in Syria and over the past three years have been fought by many groups who are trying to destroy them.
The most effective of these groups has been the Syrian military itself. Therefore the obvious solution would be for the US to co-ordinate with the Syrian government in defeating ISIL. However I think it is as unlikely that the Syrian government would be prepared to work with the US as the US would be prepared to work with the Syrians. It should though be quite easy to create a sort of unspoken compromise whereby the US carries out air-strikes that significantly weaken ISIL. Then with no direct co-ordination between the two the Syrian military would be able to easily defeat a weakened ISIL. After all the main reason why ISIL decided to branch out into Iraq was because they were already very close to defeat at the hands of the Syrian government.
If Obama's apparent desire to micro-manage the situation makes this unspoken compromise unacceptable the next logical option would be to support the Kurds in fighting ISIL. Time and time again the Kurds have proved themselves to be highly motivated, highly effective and highly disciplined fighters and reliable allies. Kurds are made up of a number of religions including Muslims, Christians and Yazidis. They are also aggressively secular in ideology meaning that there is little to no risk that they will suddenly turn on their sponsors to pursue an Islamist agenda. What's more the very small sliver of territory that ISIL currently hold in Syria is either Kurdish territory or directly adjacent. As such it wouldn't take much to allow the Kurds to move against ISIL with US air-support. If the US was prepared to be very aggressive against ISIL in Iraq it would even be quite quickly possible for some of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces who have been so successful in fighting ISIL in Iraq to take that fight to ISIL in Syria.
Perhaps under pressure for Saudi Arabia Obama though seems more focused on providing support to the Arab groups within Syria of which there are many to chose from;
- Al-Nusra Front (ANF) - The largest insurgent group in Syria after ISIL ANF are directly linked to Al Qaeda. As such their objective in Syria is the same as their objective in Afghanistan - to create a failed state in which they are free to operate. As such it is morally indefensible for the US to support them and to do so would violate at least one UNSC resolution that the US has voted for along with a host of US domestic federal laws.
- The Islamic Front (IF) - This is an umbrella organisation made up of at least seven different groups. It is already directly funded by Saudi Arabia although many believe it is simply a proxy to allow the Saudis to support ISIL without officially supporting ISIL. Three of its seven groups; "Islamic Movement of the Levant," "Falcons of the Levant" and "Supporters of the Levant" are very open about the fact that they share the ideology of ISIL while others such as "Army of Islam" have a thinly disguised but very aggressive Islamist agenda. As such building up any of these groups to fight ISIL would not so much be an attempt to defeat them as to change their name.
- The Free Syrian Army (FSA) - This is the group that the Obama hopes everyone will think he means when he talks of arming "moderates." The problem is that the FSA have never really existed as a fighting force. Instead their main purpose is to provide an acceptable face for the Syria conflict by giving western politicians like John Kerry and John McCain someone to have their photograph taken with. They've been defeated in pretty much every battle they've fought in losing most of their equipment to the aforementioned groups who have also massacred large numbers of their fighters. As a result saying that you're going to supply the FSA is pretty much the same thing as saying you are going to supply ISIL, ANF or IF. In practical terms the FSA number only a few thousand and they hold no real territory in Syria having been recently ousted from their positions in the Golan Heights by ANF. As such if they were to attempt to re-establish themselves in Syria with US support they would first have to fight their way through ANF, then the Syrian army in order to head north where they would have to defeat IF before even coming into contact with ISIL.
As a nation the US was created at a time when mainly European Monarchs would frequently engage in wars of adventure and conquest. Having itself escaped from this colonialism the US Constitution was specifically designed to make it very difficult for the US to go to war by requiring that Congress and Congress alone could declare war. This is laid out in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution. However it does allow for the President to unilaterally act in defence of the nation if the delay of calling a Congressional vote would threaten the nations ability to defend itself (presumably from invasion).
Due to the abuse of this power by President Nixon in the Vietnam war the situation was clarified further by the passing of the War Powers Resolution (50 USC, 1541-15-48). This limits the maximum amount of time that the President can act unilaterally to 60 days with a 30 day extension to withdraw troops without having to seek the approval of Congress. The US operation in Iraq has currently been going on for 35 days. Also in last night's speech Obama has made it clear that the operation is not solely in defence of the US meaning that he no longer has the option to act unilaterally regardless of how long the operation has gone on for.
In his quest to avoid consulting Congress Obama is rumoured to be attempting to use the 2001 Authorisation of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF) which is still on the books 13 years later. The problem is that AUMF only covers military force "against those responsible for the recent (11/9/01) attacks launched against the United States." ISIL were in no way involved in the Sept 11th attacks nor are they even allied with Al Qaeda who were responsible for the attacks. In fact ISIL and Al Qaeda are declared enemies with ISIL's most recent offensive in Syria being against ANF who are allied with Al Qaeda. Therefore AUMF most certainly does not cover US military action against ISIL and it may even forbid it because ISIL are considered an enemy of Al Qaeda.
It appears that the reason why Obama is so keen to deny Congress a vote on military action is because he has focused his entire political agenda on trying to win Democrat control of Congress in the mid-term elections by making it appear as though Congress is incapable of doing its job. As such Obama is desperate to avoid showing that Congress can in fact be highly bipartisan and efficient when the President is behaving reasonably and responsibly. After all it seems that the only way authorisation for action against ISIL is going to be blocked is if Democrat Senators rebel against because they do not want to admit that Obama did not end the war in Iraq in 2012. Instead he simply ran away from it.
16:40 on 11/9/14 (UK date).
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