By John Ubaldi
Contributor, In Homeland Security
The terror attack by ISIS in Paris this month shook the world, but it also upended the 2016 presidential race as the candidates now have to focus on foreign policy instead of just the U.S. economy.
Since the Paris attacks, the presidential candidates have been laying out various proposals on how they would defeat ISIS, and on Thursday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton provided her strategy for dealing with foreign policy and national security. While addressing the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton articulated her vison, and in the future Republican candidates will have to do the same.
So far Republicans vying for the presidency have given a broad strategy on how they would deal with ISIS. Donald Trump consistently stated the U.S. should bomb the oil infrastructure that funds ISIS, as was the case last week when the U.S. destroyed trucks used to smuggle oil.
Trump stated, “Remember, I was the one who said attack the oil (ISIS’s source of wealth) a long time ago. Everyone scoffed, now they’re attacking the oil.”
This may sound good on the campaign trail, but would the U.S. begin bombing the ISIS capital of Al-Raqqah and its population of over 200,000 civilians? Unlikely.
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and military commanders have publically stated air strikes alone will not lead to the defeat of ISIS. The question then becomes who replaces ISIS? Military commanders know they have the ability to take out ISIS, but from the experience borne in Iraq and Afghanistan, without a viable entity to provide governance upon the defeat of ISIS inside Syria, the aftermath will result in chaos.
The rest of the Republican field has put forward their own proposal for defeating ISIS, but only in broad terms, they will have to be more specific and must outline their own strategic foreign policy vision.
During her address, Clinton laid out three main core elements for defeating ISIS, first, defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria, second, dismantle and disrupt the growing terrorist infrastructure around the world, and finally harden the defenses and those of our allies.
One of the key components of Clinton’s strategy is to have the Sunni Arab nations and Iraqi Sunnis join the fight against ISIS. “Ultimately, however, the ground campaign in Iraq will only succeed if more Iraqi Sunnis join the fight. But that won’t happen so long as they do not feel they have a stake in their country or confidence in their own security and capacity to confront ISIS.”
She continued, “Now, we’ve been in a similar place before in Iraq. In the first “Sunni awakening” in 2007 we were able to provide sufficient support and assurances to the Sunni tribes to persuade them to join us in rooting out al-Qaida. Unfortunately, under Prime Minister Maliki’s rule, those tribes were betrayed and forgotten.”
Clinton has spoken on this approach as well as many of the Republican candidates, the unfortunate aspect which she wasn’t pressed on, is that Clinton voted against the surge strategy that proved successful in 2007-08, plus served as Secretary of State during President Obama’s first term and supported the precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq during that time.
The Sunni Arab nations and Iraqi Sunnis do not trust her, and with this dichotomy Clinton would have an impossible task of pursuing this strategy if elected president.
All the blustering and rhetoric aside, neither Republican nor Democratic candidates for president have articulated a coherent strategy for dealing with ISIS in Iraq and more importantly Syria. In an interview with Journalist Charlie Rose of PBS, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated the U.S. doesn’t have a strategy for dealing with Syria.
The question each aspirant for president needs to be asked is what our strategy is and what our priorities for both Iraq and Syria are. President Obama clearly is devoid of a strategy and is punting the inevitable decision to his successor.
The situation in the Middle East is complicated by the fact the U.S. delayed making a decision on Syria, since the civil war began in 2011, now the crisis has gotten more complex with each decision with its own set of risks.
Because the Obama administration has deferred articulating a strategy, the situation has become more complex with other regional powers now entering the fray.
The U.S. has to understand other regional powers view the threat from ISIS differently, and whatever strategy the U.S. pursues will have to factor this in. So far no one in the U.S. has mentioned this aspect.
Candidates from both parties mention a ground force as vital to ultimately defeating ISIS in Syria, but where is that ground force?
Whatever decision is reached the U.S. will now have to factor in Russian intervention, with Moscow clearly wanting to keep President Bashar Hafez al-Assad in power or another Alawite leader in charge if the Syrian leader become too much of a liability. There focus is to keep the Russian military bases at Tartus and Latakia open.
Turkey’s focus in on the Kurds, Saudi Arabia is heavily involved in Yemen, and they view (as do the Sunni Arab nations) the threat from Iran as the more pressing concern.
Egypt, the most populous of the Arab nations, is deeply involved in the Sini, plus has a tumultuous relationship with the United States.
Both Republicans and Democrats need to understand the complexities of the Middle East, because rhetoric will not solve the crisis. The media must challenge and press each of the candidates on their strategy or the situation will grow worse – forcing the U.S. to make some difficult decisions.
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