A borderless war
By William D. HARTUNG
McClatchy-Tribune
Air strikes in Syria mark the latest step in the escalation of the U.S. war in the region. A conflict that started as a bid to provide humanitarian aid and protect U.S. personnel in Iraq has grown in just over two months into a war without borders.
There are now more than 1,600 U.S. troops in Iraq, more than three times the number President Barack Obama authorized back in June at the outset of the current conflict. Air strikes are being carried out in both Iraq and Syria, in some cases against populous areas where there is a high risk of civilian casualties. And the president has pledged to pursue Islamic State leaders wherever they go — a recipe for an even wider war.
Spending millions
In the mean time our government is slated to spend $500 million to train Syrian forces who will somehow be expected to fight the Islamic State and the Assad regime simultaneously. Despite Obama’s pledge to the contrary, there is still a real danger that U.S. troops will be deployed to the front lines — either to accompany Iraqi troops or to call in air strikes.
Regardless of what the administration chooses to call it, we are now at war in Iraq and Syria, and this intervention should go no further without an up or down vote in Congress. For the moment, Obama seems to think that it is sufficient to send Congress a note every once in a while justifying each expansion of the war. This is clearly insufficient, and it is no way to run a democracy.
In considering whether to authorize the continuation of the war, members of Congress should think carefully about what military force can and cannot accomplish in the complex, multi-sided civil wars now raging in both Iraq and Syria.
The first point to consider is that the United States has few if any reliable allies on the ground in either Iraq or Syria, a fact that will only increase pressure for the use of U.S. ground troops at some point down the road.
Iraq’s new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has yet to rein in the Shiite militias that have been murdering innocent Sunnis in and around Baghdad. And he has been unable to reach agreement on nominees for the key posts of interior and defense minister. Without progress on these fronts there will be little chance of persuading the Sunni groups that have provided support to the Islamic State to turn against it.
In Syria, the situation is even more uncertain. It will be extremely difficult to build the 5,000 Syrian rebels the U.S. is planning to train over the next year into an effective fighting force. And unless the U.S.-backed forces are both loyal and effective, many if not most of the arms we provide to them will end up in the hands of the Islamic State, just as happened with the weapons we gave to the Iraqi security forces.
Civilian casualties
The second reason members of Congress should oppose continuation of the war is that we can’t bomb our way out of this problem. While air strikes may have some limited effectiveness in blunting Islamic State forces here or there, as the war drags on and enters into urban areas the likelihood of civilian casualties will grow.
The final issue that Congress should consider is the cost of the war. While current activities can be covered from the Pentagon’s bloated war budget, there is no guarantee of what the war will cost going forward. In fact, the Obama administration has refused to even provide an estimate.
Continuing the war in Iraq and Syria will only make a bad situation worse.
William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at Center for International Policy. Distributed by MCT.