Dear Mr. President,
I am sorry to break it to you, but your newly proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force is inadequate. I know that you have been getting criticism from all sides as of late (even from your own party) on this issue, but I just can’t look at this proposal without seeing some problems that could immediately crop up.
In the first place, this three-year plan just doesn’t cut it. Leon Panetta, who was once at the highest levels of your administration, has said it will take close to 30 years to defeat ISIS, and he is seconded by Michael Hayden. Another inadequacy is the quest to appease both sides. Why are you allowing yourself to be hamstrung in proposing this in such a way?
After all, you have the 2001 AUMF that became active under the Bush Administration which you have been able to use to act very broadly in this instance against the threat of ISIS. Why make a middle of the road plan when you have Congress and the American people (as well as the rest of the world) behind you on killing this threat? It just doesn’t make much sense to me Mr. President. Repeal the first AUMF and expand this one, please.
The one place where you do take a substantial turn from your past stance on the issue is in relation to ground attacks. You have a justified aversion to using conventional combat forces in this fight, which I think is smart. After all, we don’t want to have to re-occupy Iraq once again with hundreds of thousands of troops.
Even so, you have proposed to Congress that they authorize the use of limited ground combat operations, most likely with the use of special operations forces for a variety of missions (rescue operations and intelligence sharing and gathering among them). Therefore, even though you have been criticized for this rather broad and open-ended language of this proposal, I believe that you are taking steps in the right direction on this, and I am joined by the majority of Americans on this, and by Gen. Martin E. Dempsey.
Something drastic needs to be done about ISIS, something to obliterate them completely with whatever elements of power we have at our disposal — diplomatic, military, economic, etc. Otherwise we will continue to have this problem for years to come, and the limited but flexible AUMF that you are asking for from Congress will only prolong the agony. Ground troops, even in a limited capacity, are the first step in the right direction.
Many Democrats have expressed doubts and reservations over the content of the AUMF or its parameters. To those like Senator Joe Manchin III who say that “If money or military might would change that part of the world, we’d be done a long time ago,” you should respond that the reason those resources didn’t work is that we applied them in the wrong way to the wrong conflict. We should never have invaded Iraq, but now we must in order to fix what we started in the first place.
To those who remind you that you won on promises to end never-ending wars in faraway places, you should respond that this was the case, but the situation has changed, and we need to do all we can to stop this threat, especially since the war is already upon us. Finally, to those who say that we shouldn’t use ground troops at all because it will draw us into another long war that will leave those troops there indefinitely, you should respond that enemy that we face and our stated objective (to degrade and destroy ISIS) necessitates the use of ground troops, at least in a limited capacity.
Lyndon Johnson is your example here, Mr. President. Sir, you need to get down on the floors of the House and the Senate and twist some arms, take command of this situation. You are the Great Communicator; use your gift for oratory and excellent communication skills to get this thing moving forward. Convince them that you are committed to this fight and allay their fears.
I know that your style is “no-drama Obama.” But Mr. President, this is your moment. This is the part where you galvanize the American people and the Congress behind you as Commander-in-Chief and do what needs to be done, especially in asking for the right kind of authorization. For all our sakes, take your moment and make the most of it.
Reach the columnist at jbrunne2@asu.edu or follow @MrAmbassador4 on Twitter.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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