President, GOP leaders must end ISIS bickering

Islamic extremists operating under the aegis of Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, also known as Islamic State or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, have declared war on America and other western nations.

Last week’s lone-wolf terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., that claimed 14 lives, and last month’S massacre in Paris that killed 130 people are the latest manifestations of the threat posed by jihadists.

Islamic State is the enemy – and is not only attracting recruits from the West (a large number born and raised in the United States, Britain, France and Germany), but is inspiring the type of bloody attack carried out in San Bernardino.

In an address to the nation Sunday night, President Obama correctly called it “an act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people.”

But while Obama sought to reassure the nation that his administration has a strategy to defeat Islamic State abroad and to protect Americans from the threat of homegrown terrorism, the bottom line is that we’re no closer to understanding what the strategy entails than we were prior to the president’s speech.

The reason is that Obama’s words about progress being made in the war on Islamic terrorism aren’t matched by the reality on the ground. The unrelenting aerial bombings of IS strongholds in Syria and Iraq by the U.S. and its allies and by Russia haven’t caused the extremists to retreat.

“The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it,” Obama said in his prime-time television address. “We will destroy ISIL and any other organization that tries to harm us.”

It is noteworthy that days before the California bloodbath, the president said in a TV interview that the U.S. was safe from a Paris-style attack from IS and that there was no “specific, credible” threat to this country.

Drumbeat of criticism

Not surprisingly, Republicans in Congress and candidates for the Republican nomination for president have kept up a drumbeat of criticism of the administration’s approach to Islamic extremism.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the president’s speech Sunday a “missed opportunity.”

“Unfortunately, the American people did not hear of a strategy or a plan to defeat and destroy” Islamic State, McConnell said. “Instead they heard a restatement of a military campaign.”

But McConnell and his GOP colleagues on Capitol Hill bear some of the responsibility for whatever vagueness exists as far as a military strategy is concerned.

Ten months ago, the president submitted to Congress a draft authorization to use military force. He asked for specific power to fight the terrorists. He repeated that call for authorization Sunday night.

However, Republican leaders in the House and Senate have chosen not to schedule a debate on the president’s authorization request.

As Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., put it Monday in an interview with Tribune News Service, “War’s a big deal, and it deserves to be debated and voted on in Congress. Quite frankly, it’s cowardly to avoid this issue.”

Future presidents who want to use military force in far-flung places will point to this era for doing whatever they want to do.

Indeed, the Obama administration has reacted to the lack of new authority to go to war by relying on a 2001 authorization by Congress to fight al-Qaida.

Thus, it began the aerial campaign against Islamic State last year using the legal underpinnings of the 14-year-old authorization.

It should be clear that while Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail continue to criticize the president for a less than muscular response to Islamic State’s growing influence in the Middle East and beyond, they have yet to put forth their strategy.

If they disagree with Obama’s contention that enduring offensive ground combat operations are off the table, Sen. McConnell and his colleagues should propose the deployment of American ground forces to battle Islamic State.

That would trigger a much-needed debate in Washington and around the country. The bickering between the White House and Republicans in Congress must end.